A Spell, a Rebel Yell
by Elizabeth Cicero
Summary: Jack is secretly preparing for a new oceanic conquest, when he stumbles upon a scene that changes everything for his roughly stable mind. Eva is a girl who has lost her way in the only place she's ever known, and desires to find it again on the open sea.
1. Eyes on Fire

**Eyes on Fire

* * *

**

No one ever understood Eva Marley, and for that matter, she felt that no singular human being ever could.

Certainly there had always been those who had claimed to love her, or those who offered her their care, good will, and a safe haven from the trouble she seemed to map out so well for herself on a daily basis. But no one she had ever stumbled upon had ever known who she was, what she was after in the deepest trenches of her heart. No one understood why in the world she thrived on the attention she derived from both her criminal aloofness and unrestrained freedom in the small coastal village of her birth.

She was a martyr to a good risk, a scoundrel by day and a wanderer by night. She was a young lady who with every fine intention known to man, had discovered a way to sink beneath the radar of the propriety she had been raised to know, all the while, keeping it in solid tact for a rainy day.

Eva wanted to roam the world the same way she had roamed the streets of St. Pierre her whole life, and had always dreamed of sailing for occupation. It was a man's place of course, the sea, but it was what drew her from reality at most points of the day. She would simply stare out at the ever shortening horizon, knowing that soon enough it wouldn't be there at all. The world was closing in around her, around everyone in fact, as ports developed closer together and the trading industry covered every inch of the islands she had loved so much.

This was why she needed to be on the sea, so that she could find more places to get into trouble, places where no one knew her or cared what she did. Eva was hell bent on finding the opportunity enough to leave and claim her own spot aboard one of the vessels that came in and out of port each day. She just had to figure out which one looked the most promising.

Standing on shoreline behind her inherited land, she kicked at a few misplaced stones and shells. She rubbed the purple gems of a pair of earrings she had lifted from a boutique in town the day before. She hadn't intended on taking them when she went inside, but the glow of their crystallized cut in the sunlight called to her, and she knew there was no way she couldn't take them for her own.

Thief or not, rebel or not, a rumored gypsy or not, Eva knew to only filch what seemed so out of place anyway. Especially in a society like this, a place where fishermen and sailors wives doted on fine cloth and catch above jewels. The earrings had been in the shop for years, never purchased, and dusty enough when she lifted them to prove they'd been neglected in touch as well. But now they were her own and gawked at often with a smirk.

She tucked them back inside of her dress coat and walked up to the house again. It was empty; as it had been for almost eight years, save for her. But she almost preferred the loneliness now. She could do what she wished inside of its walls and make all the company she desired in the streets at night, with strangers she would never have to think on again.

Perhaps, this was her biggest problem. She was alone and had been since each of her parents passing, but she made no effort to associate herself with any one crowd or person long enough to form a lasting relationship. She had no friends, no suitors, no one but her shaggy, rescued mutt Dill. It was all she had the patience for anyway.

"Yes okay. I'm coming along to feed you. You spoilt mongrel."

She laughed and stepped in through the large doors to the dilapidated mansion on the hill. The one she hardly cared for at all, and the one she only wanted to run from. Eva planned to spend the evening back in town, searching out the ships and analyzing which one would be the best for her to sneak aboard. With a few minor adjustments to her person, she imagined how perfect an adventure it could be.

* * *

"Cap'n?"

There was no immediate answer save for the sway of a hand from behind a stack of empty barrels on the deck. Gibbs tried to look about them to figure out what was being done, but could not, and continued to speak windily.

"Cap'n, the town looks a might raw t' follow in fer the night. Perhaps we could move along t' Tortuga instead?"

"No." The voice clearly answered back.

"St. Pierre's not much o' a place to rouse the crew's delight, rest assured."

"It's as good a place as any, Master Gibbs." He saw his captain's face for the first time in an hour rise from behind the used supply holdings. "There be company enough for the lot of ye maggots anywhere's in this sea. Take the offer I'm givin' and ave' done."

Jack silenced the older man and stomped away in hunt for something. The ship was drawing nearer to the small port town with every minute that passed in his looking for what he'd so hopelessly misplaced. The chart, stolen from Barbossa's greedy grasp and taken proud care of since he'd left him to suffer on the rum runner's island, had vanished in his squandering, drunken state the night before. He'd torn his cabin apart and the stock-hold below, but it still hadn't shown. Without it their efforts would be pointless once they left this town restocked.

He darted back inside of his cabin for another look around, but only ended up with an even heavier ache in his head and the last fresh bottle of rum to ease his fret while he sailed the Pearl into port. The sun had already set around the tiny island of Martinique, casting a hazy gray over the beaches and inner mainland town of St. Pierre. A few torches were lit to welcome other arriving ships, and noises could be heard all around as they sank into the low green waters at the docks. But it still seemed a quiet place this early on in the evening.

Jack's stomach growled for little less than food and drink, and he left the chart's location for later. He focused on preparing the crew to empty out the hold for the new supplies they would spend the next morning collecting. He danced around the deck on the heels of his boots, shouting out orders as they were all perfectly accustomed to.

"Weigh anchor and plank, ye bilge rats! Or it'll be a kiss to the gunna's daughter at rope's end, for ye!"

The hustled about, rounding Jack's as they made haste on the anchor, ropes, leads and the plank itself, as well as all of the cargo from their three week escapade through the Keys. It had proved to be a token of good fortune for once. They had piled a lofty mountain of deserted gold and gems into the hold, divided it handsomely and now ran with jangling pocket fulls.

The task went as fast as could ever be expected, and after a good twenty minutes of hard movement and labor, each of the men darted off into the now blackened streets. Jack had decided to leave his newest crew in charge of watching over the ship - as rookies to the seas so often found themselves employed - and then followed close beside Gibbs as they shuffled into town together.

"Leavin' port by high noon t'morrow, eh Jack?"

"Sooner. If ye can manage t' get them broad and sober nough' to load the stock."

Gibbs chuckled as they passed a few other ships and crewmen. "Anxious t' find that wot's to do, youth water ay?"

Jack did not reply with a yes or no. "Anxious fer somethin' mate." He paused a moment when they made it to the center of the town's small square and noticed a shadowed little shop at the end of the street. He turned back to his first mate. "I've got t' run a short errand. Meet ye fer a drink in a bit?"

The agreement was made and Gibbs hurried off to the pub directly ahead, while Jack swaggered into the hollowed alley. _Mann's Notary_ sat in wait for him, almost like an official beckon, a single light still twinkling in the front window when he stepped up and grasped the doorknob.

* * *

Eva shuffled behind the old mill as it crisscrossed toward _The Torrey Tavern_. She skipped along with a keen eye on the distant ships and crews mingling with women, but tried to stay far from much attention. She often times had run ins with all sorts of men down here at night, and although she enjoyed their company quite often with or without the gold stipend to follow, she didn't need to feel desired on this night. She only needed to concentrate on getting off the spit of land that had her so trapped.

This was easier said than done of course, as she often times had known. She stepped out into the moonlit alleyway heading up alongside the notary office. Her skirts were bunched to keep from getting wet in the puddles from an earlier storm. There was noise enough that the ones from behind were never audible. She continued skipping over puddles, missing a few, and soaking her boots through the lace holes.

She was but a few feet from making it out clear and free to the center of town, when a hand grabbed hold of her wrist. She flung around with a soft yelp as the hand drew her against the brick wall under a veil of utter darkness. A man's face above hers shone with a bright, clean smile. His other hand covered her mouth and he whispered passionately.

"Knew you'd come t'night, Eva."

She rolled her eyes with exhaustion.

"Missed you the week past."

He moved his hand away and covered her mouth with his, roughly, but always just as sensitive to the matter in which he found with her. She felt his tongue break her lips apart and swirl hastily within the cavern of her mouth, making her jump under his hands a little at the intrusion. Of course she accepted it willingly after a moment, having only to deal with him before he would bore of her and leave again for his proper little wife and girl child.

He pulled his mouth away to take a breath but held her close.

"Henry. You've gone completely mad. Scaring a woman in an alleyway is hardly the way to get what you so wish for."

He smiled as he leaned in to nibble at her neck and the plunging palate where her dress revealed her soft, pouring flesh. Eva put her interests in finding a ship on hold to please the both of them. Low whimpers escaped her as his teeth and lips dug into her skin harder. He urged with a shuffle of her skirts as he raised her body and wrapped her legs around his waist.

"I'll take you here now, Miss Marley. If it should fancy well enough?"

Eva laughed and held him to her breasts, needing to feel more. This was his answer.

She worked the buttons of his pants while he kept his focus on everything else. He groaned as she had pulled him from the tightened trousers to be free under the hem of her skirt. His solid flesh prodded the warm skin of her low, thin belly, and she groaned the same.

"It fancies if you'll so delight in making it quick. I was in the middle of business before you so rudely interrupted."

Her smile was kind and he understood just what she wanted, and so delivered it to her gladly, thrusting within her tiny frame before she had the chance to take a breath. Eva's head slammed against the bricks without the care Henry often showed. He pinched her legs around his body as he moved against her to get comfortable within the confines of her slick and narrow tunnel. She sighed breathlessly, to which he covered her lips, biting on the bottom one as he eased away and then quickly returned, completely drowned in her heat and wetness.

"Again," she whispered. "Harder this time."

* * *

He rushed from the storefront with a twisted collection of papers that he shoved into the inner pocket of his long coat. Jack leaped down the stone steps and fell on the dirt ground again, his eyes averted to the docks for a moment. He was trying to decide if he truly felt like bothering with anything more than his rum and charts, or if he wanted to keep his promise, meet Gibbs and find his own company for the evening. This little French port was certain to have a bounty of interesting, lighthearted women with every intention of providing him with contented release for cheap coin.

Yes, he could easily stand for a pair of fine legs wrapped around him tonight.

Jack grinned lopsidedly as he stumbled along the path in front of the notary's building. He was about to turn down the alley way towards the tavern, when he heard the sound of a hushed whimper, a cry of something that was not pain or sadness.

He glanced down the dark, overgrown alley, but he didn't see anything at first. His vision was blurred from too much sun and afternoon drink. But the more the he focused on the black shadows, the more he knew he was seeing. The brightest pair of deep sea blue eyes flashed down the alley, directly at him in fact. He realized that these eyes were filled with a fire that matched the position to which the attached body was caught. Jack noticed legs, the kind he had so wanted for himself, tied at the mid thighs with the softest of pink lace bows. Then he saw the body of a man to which they were hooked around.

He could not help but to look back into the eyes of the woman, the ones that were on fire, aglow in all of the immense darkness surrounding them, like a forest caught in a flaming storm.

He felt his body tighten as he stood there, captured by her gaze. Her company's face was buried elsewhere beside her, unaware of their silent meeting. The engagement he had met her in, on impact of climax, was one that looked to be either of secrecy or of interesting ritual.

One second passed, the longest he could have imagined, before he found his legs strong enough to move along and away from the scene. Jack stepped silently back in the direction of where he knew his own choice of evening company would be waiting. He prayed against his agitation with the Gods, that with a bit more drink in his gut and even a little more luck, he wouldn't think about those hauntingly blue eyes for the rest of the night.

Let alone the wondering of what the girl's name could be after such a feasting display.


	2. A Big Fish

**A Big Fish**

_You might be a big fish  
In a little pond  
Doesn't mean you've won  
'Cause along may come  
A bigger one. _

_-__**Lost**__, by Coldplay-

* * *

_

When the earliest of morning light filled the small corner room of an ancient inn on St. Pierre, the heat was so great, so demanding, that Jack woke a full hour ahead of that which he'd even planned. He hadn't slept so well in a month, due in part to the bed which was unmoving without storms or heavy ocean swells, and also perhaps, the soft skin which had covered his throughout most of the late night.

He slowly moved from a young woman's arms, his head bobbing heavy with only the finest of French wines. His shirt and discarded breeches were in a heap on the floor beneath his bare feet, and though he struggled to get dressed in silence, he eventually felt a warm hand tracing over the notable scars and ink on his back.

_"Bonjour, Capitaine…"_ the sweet voice beckoned as he turned with a sly grin.

"Mornin' t' you, mon amour."

She giggled at his slurred accent as he leaned back into the mattress, half covering her with his upper body. Jack planted wet, wild kisses upon her vine rich lips. His wiry dreads and soft black hair fell across her breasts, mixing with the honey yellow of her own long tresses. Her mouth consumed Jack's tongue as her arms wrapped firmly around his neck, pulling him ever closer to her fiery skin.

Between kisses he heard her offer herself to him again. "Won't you stay a while longer and collect better on your coin?"

He laughed a little and let his tongue swirl out of the heated cavern of her mouth, to trace circles on her chin and neck. Of course he didn't want to leave. This girl, like so many others before her, had captured his spirit with a simple tumble through cotton sheets. He wanted nothing more than to stay there and be ravished by her mouth and hips the rest of the day. Yet, the duty of a captain was retained.

"Wish I could, love. But the sea calls."

The young woman frowned as he sat up to return pulling his boots on. While he did, she sat up as well, pressing her sweltering, tender breasts into his spine as her arms came around to fondle the tenseness growing in his pants below again. He tried to ignore her tiny hand delving inside of the thin fabric and latching onto his oversensitive shaft. He growled at her in hazy ecstasy, but still moved her hand away gently, knowing he had to go despite the desire to stay.

He hovered over the bed, looking down upon her as he threw on his wrinkled tunic, sash, belts and finally his coat. She lay there naked upon the sheets before him, her supple figure calling out for attention, that of which he couldn't give. He smiled and leaned down over the mattress one last time, bringing his lips close to hers.

"Ye are a _goddess_, Marielle."

A smile lit up her face and he softly kissed it away. She lay on her side watching him from across the small room, and as he tipped his hat to take leave, the charms in his hair glistening in the early sun, she called out to him.

"Do come back someday, Jack!"

A lasting, gold-capped grin was all he could offer before sliding into the alley and shutting the door.

* * *

He walked along aimlessly through quiet, rising town. A few lingering drunks scavenged for food along the main street, small shops were opening as they swept steps and threw back windows and doors, and even a couple of wenches stood rumoring at the town's center fountain.

Jack had sworn to Gibbs and the crew that he would work on getting the needed stock and supplies before they left at noon. And while he strolled, prepared to carry out this task, he was drawn from making lists in his mind when a sudden roar of energy came from the street ahead of where he was. Echoes of shouting and the sound of bayonets being drawn interested him as he slowed to watch for whatever was coming his way.

"Lieutenant, she's come about through ere'!"

Not a full moment passed, before he saw a rushing body coming at him in the dirty street. It was a woman, her skirts raised as her small boots trampled through the dust in a full bolt out of trouble. He couldn't make out a face because her long, tangled black hair was strewn about as she ran. As the calls of officers grew louder, she tripped and fell to the ground before him, startled and in fear for her life.

"Thief! Make way!"

Jack's eyes darted from the long street way, where he heard the nearing horses, and then back down to the girl as she crawled onto her hands and knees. Her huge skirts and dangling gems and jewels were making this a struggle. He walked closer and knelt down, offering out his hand.

"Ere', let me help you. Quickly."

Her head flipped back with a mess of dark curls, and the instant his eyes came down to meet hers, he was startled. For below him, curious and scared, were the watery eyes he had never stopped imagining from the alleyway. Her mouth gaped a little, having recognized him too, and he instantly pulled her to her feet as he saw a flurry of red coats and shining firearms coming about the corner shops.

"Over here," he murmured as he hid her behind a high gate beside a closed tavern that had run thick with vines. "Don't move."

His dark eyes locked her into place as Eva stood nervously behind the iron barricade, watching him step back toward the street between the small ivy vines. She bit her lip anxiously, not sure what sort of intentions a man could have to save her from the trouble she'd brought upon herself.

Jack waited a few feet from the gate, enough to block any suspicions, tapping his boot and whistling. Moments later, a flock of six officers trampled toward him on horseback. They halted and the large, white stallions kicked up dirt in front of Jack's eyes. The man in the lead peered down at him.

"You, rogue. Have you seen a gypsy girl run by with a stolen coin bag?"

He looked down, trying his hardest not to turn and glance into the sapphire eyes he felt burning a hole in his back.

"Fraid' not gents." Jack replied solemnly with a low grin as he turned his face back up. "But if it's a pickpocket yer after, I'd place wager on er' having run an escape to th' docks."

The lead gentleman nodded swiftly and turned his horse about, demanding.

"In step, men. To the docks!"

In a storm of dust and anger, the six horses and their riding men fled toward the shore, leaving Jack watching after them with a proud smile. When all was cleared, he spun on his boot heels to find the girl again. But as he should have guessed, based merely upon the art of her supposed craft, she was long gone.

* * *

With scraped hands, weak knees and a heavy weight upon her spirit, Eva wandered silently back up the hill to her house. The bag of coins jingled with every step she made. She thought about the man who had helped her, the same man who had come across her actions in the alley the night before. It had embarrassed her a little, for him to walk upon her like that and to not have said a word, nor made a move to show face in the dark clearing.

His dark eyes had somehow made their way into her dreams, as if she'd seen or heard of them somewhere before and knew exactly what they meant. She had grown up with a fascination for the scoundrels who traveled the seas, sailors and pirates alike, but she couldn't place where she knew the design of his face from. He was frighteningly handsome, with a sense of care but also rebellion, same as she had herself. It left her swooning in her subconscious.

Her early morning lift of the coins from a merchant's cart had been to ensure her finances when she left from the docks later in the afternoon. She had spotted the perfect ship, a brooding one that loomed near the outer edge of the port, with wispy black sails and a smooth sheen of smoky oak. Eva didn't know what it was named, or who crewed it, or even who might have captained it, and she didn't particularly care. It was merely her transport elsewhere, not an everlasting home. She only needed freedom from Martinique, whether that be on the seas or new-found land.

As she came into her home through the back door, she was greeted by her dog as usual, looking for food and company. He followed her about the halls and rooms as she collected things she needed for her journey.

Her father's old tunics and breeches would suit best. She pilfered his tattered sailing hat off the wall, as well as his belt and boots from the wardrobe. Nothing about her parents' room or the rest of the house had changed since their deaths so long ago, for she had never had the heart to touch any of it. But now, it was about necessity, not sentiment.

From her mother's vanity she only took with her a fine, antique silver brush that had belonged to her grandmother in Versailles, as well as a handful of jewels and pearls she imagined she could use for barter in the future.

Once her bags were packed with fresh clothing and riches, she found an old razor from her father's shearing kit, once used on his bristly chin. She stood before the mirror, grasping at thick locks of her hair, as she cut through them. She winced slightly at the action. Her hair fell to the wood floor below her in a substantial pile as it left her neck, and left her head in only a shortly cropped black mess.

"The son you never had, dearest Papa." She giggled and dusted out all of the loose strands of hair until she looked as though she were a lonely, beggar's son in the reflecting glass.

With a basin and warm water, she also took to removing all of the smeared paint across her eyes, and the blush on each of her cheeks, as well as the lipstick dabbed upon her mouth. Her face was plain, innocent looking, and hardly that of any woman's she'd ever seen when she was finished.

She changed out of her heavy skirts and draping trinkets. A cloth wrap bound across both of her breasts tied them down inconspicuously, and she pulled on a dirty pair of brown pants and a cream colored tunic. They were comfortable, more so than her own clothes usually were. She smiled once more in the mirror before tugging on the boots and grabbing her bags to head back downstairs.

"Come on, Dill."

The dog followed her as she left the house, walking loyally by her side all the way back into town and down the road toward the docks. Eva watched each of the ships being loaded for leave, but kept her eyes pinned on the darkest of them all, settled the farthest off, almost in secrecy. Nothing was being loaded onto it yet, but a large group of rowdy men stood around its dock, talking and going over some sort of checklist.

She saw an older man shouting out orders. She smiled confidently as she approached him, Dill on her heels. He looked up as she came in to stand beside him.

"Hello," she coughed to find the right tone, a more boyish one. "Sir."

"Lad…?" He asked curiously.

"Is this your ship, sir?"

Gibbs glanced down the docks and circled the scene of the Pearl, then tilted his head back.

"I be first mate, o' this ship. Why?"

"You must have lost some men to the town overnight. Yes?"

Gibbs nodded slowly, looking down at his stock papers again.

"A few, boy. Why do you ask?"

"I would like to join on your crew."

"Would ye now?" His ears perked at this, knowing full well that they needed as many extra hands as they could be given. He held the smaller boys' gaze. "Could always use an adventuresome young sprout, such as yerself. Ave' any experience at sea?"

Gibbs stepped away to examine a few barrels, and Eva followed his movement.

"Not at sea, no. But I shall be a fast learner at any necessary tasks you have to offer."

"Hm."

He thought about it as he glanced to the stock house in search of Jack. He didn't see him though and turned back to the young boy before him.

"What's yer name, lad?"

Here she hesitated, fidgeting a little with her shirt and bag until she spoke up proudly.

"I'm _Elijah_, sir. Elijah Marley."

"Elijah eh…" he looked her up and down as though it were to test the strength in her arms rather than the reasons most men usually did. "…well, if ye think ye can handle a mop."

"Oh yes, sir!"

"And this mutt? Is he yours?"

She glanced down at Dill who sat curled in the dirt, scratching his ears. Laughing a little under her breath she knelt down to pet him, still looking up at Gibbs.

"This is Dill. He's friendly, I assure you. Wouldn't hurt a flea."

Gibbs smiled crookedly, having always had a secret soft spot for babies and dogs. He wasn't sure what Jack would make of a dog being on board, but he figured it would be good company for all of the men and nodded his approval. Eva, or in his mark Elijah, stood and began walking towards the ship.

"We make sail when th' ships loaded, lad. Make yerself useful till then."

"Aye!" she saluted back and rushed on board to help the other men, with Dill scurrying behind her.

* * *

Jack had left the duties of the ship to his crew, although he had made good on his promise of doubling the hold of rum this leg of their journeying. He was also providing them with the necessary materials to renew their hammocks below deck. And for this, they were pleased enough to see him wander back into town without his help on board.

He spent much of the morning in a merchant's office, bartering off precious gems of all shapes, sizes, and hues, for fresh bed linens for his cabin, crates of candles and clean wicks, as well as newer hand-sewn shirts and breeches.

Sometime during the business of trading at the shop, he found himself unable to dispel the thoughts of seeing the color blue again, ocean blue of course. It wasn't so much the waves and salt spray of a deep sea storm, as much as he needed to find the girl who seemed to encompass those rare feelings all within her glowing eyes. Whoever she was, why ever she ran off without thanking him, she had hooked something foul and readily unmarked in him.

Jack glanced down at the counter where laid his pile of payment in jewels. Amid the emeralds and rubies settled, he saw a single sapphire charm dancing in the faint sunlight of the shop. He sighed, lifting it out for safe keeping as he replaced it with another of the boring colored gems, and placed the cobalt stone in the pocket of his coat to admire later on.

"Payment fair and in full sir. Your packages," the merchant waved to the floor and counter that held stacks of his things.

"Merci, monsieur La Barré."

He nodded with a smirk as he clasped his hands together in a bow and turned out of the shop. His young apprentice for the day, a new lad named Jeremiah, was close on his heels with the purchases.

"Venez encore, Capitaine Sparrow. Anytime you need." The older man shouted before the bell on the door jingled closed again.

They wandered back to the ship, the boy following Jack like a dog, his arms wide and weak in a struggle to not drop anything. Once at to the Pearl's docking planks, he sent Jeremiah off to store the goods in his cabin, while he began to set orders on board. The men were scattered across the pier and in a production line on the gangplank as he wiggled by. He patted a few of them on the back with shouts of encouragement, and more still with disgust.

"Seize off that netting. We ave' no use for more!"

"Keep t' the rigging! Moor it along t' salvage its bits, ye foul lub!"

"Marty, deck needs a proper scrub. Step to, man!"

All of these commands and more were met with enthusiasm as fifty men ran to their given duties. They loaded barrels of rum and fresh water, crates stacked to the nines with the healthiest, most exotic looking fish, fruit and poultry. A few small goats were lifted aboard and taken below one by one, as well as the new linen for the necessary patchwork on the sails to be done.

He had kept all made promises, and so it was indeed a surprise to both Jack and the rest of the crew when the ship lost two of its finer, stronger sailors. The first, Bartholomew, was jumping ship in St. Pierre for his own personal devotion to better health and pleasure. Jack had graciously left him with a bag of coin and a proud tip of his hat at the tavern the night before. It was not the sort of life he would ever have chosen for himself, to wrestle with the feminine psyche on land until the end of his long days. But he respected the romantic older man just the same.

The second to toss off was a young but equally determined pirate the crew had named Squalid Pete. And on rare, overly induced occasions, Meek Petey. It was a brand he had so won on account of his submissive attitude towards all aspects of the Pearl and especially its rowdy crew. The rumors fluttered about between the crazed, desperate men on board, as to who indeed would be the first and last to take advantage of the young man. And so Pete left with his secret, one Jack felt sure he knew but never divulged to another on ship. His offering of respectful stipend did not even come close to matching that of Bart's. Not that it mattered.

As Jack shifted across the deck to meet his first mate at the bow, he sighed at how long it had already taken to load the galley. High noon had regrettably come and gone.

"Wot' is the number, Gibbs?"

"Crew sir?"

Jack nodded and twisted his fingers about the rail in front of them, glancing out on the hospitable little town, thinking about a pair of lips that tasted like fine wine. And then a set of stony blue-water eyes.

"We're t' be leavin' with only three new men than we arrived with."

His eyes shifted to the older man with a surprised expression. It meant he had gained one.

"Ye don't say. An' names?"

"Well, there be a set o' strong men who offered themselves outside o' the inn early as could be stirred. Jonah an' Nicolas. "

He glanced across the deck, already having spotted the two men in question. Without looking back at his first mate and best friend, he pushed on.

"And a 'fird?"

"Aye Capn', a young lad, sprightly and eager t' be sure. A dark little boy wit' a half weakened spirit, but sure mind no doubt. Just cross' there."

The two shifted their eyes toward the figure of the small boy. Jack knew immediately that he couldn't be more than sixteen at best, with his obviously fragile, almost feminine state. His clothes were without a single doubt his father's at the rate to which they covered half of his hands. And just as Gibbs had so professed, from under a tattered brown hat, brushing the nape of his slender almost soft neck, was a crop of choppy black hair. He hated to admit his sudden intrigue, or the irrepressible thoughts that often flowered in moments like these, in his confused mind.

He was however glad to have a replacement of some kind for Pete and Bart, whether the boy was a third their sizes or not. He was so interested in fact, that he hardly noticed his mates' ongoing speech.

"…twas' only half promising on th' matter o' sailing, yet said e' was ready and determined to learn at the' hands o' pirates."

"Not a might bit afraid then, eh?" Jack cackled over his shoulder as he took a step toward the boy. It was impossible for him not to stare at the turned creature for some reason.

"Figured we could use a deck and' or at least a new tend in th' brig."

Jack smirked and twirled his hand on his belt with an odd glow in his eye. "Indeed. I trust ye to bring the little lad up t' speed, Master Gibbs."

"Yes, Capn'!"

"Good man."

He never looked back at Gibbs. Jack made a swift move across the deck, just brushing the backside of the boy as he shuffled to his cabin. His thigh slid over the unbearably, uncommonly soft mound of the lad's bottom and left Jack in a strange sort of swell when he finally made it inside and safe against the door.

It would be difficult to deal with having something so delicate on deck during the grueling, sweltering days. It had been back there always, those repressed memories and thoughts that destroyed him when at sea, away from women. He only hoped the crew would contain themselves as he felt he would need to in time.

His head was rushing as he stammered off to his charting table, forcing himself to instead find some comfort in the ever plaguing thought of those rich indigo eyes and hiked knickers in the dark.


	3. Magic

**Magic**

_I believe there's magic here in these sails.  
In the wake of these old pirate trails…  
That cut through the water and the atmosphere  
I believe there is magic here._

-**Magic** by Kenny Chesney-

* * *

Eva had never known a touch so satisfying, so enchanting in all of her years.

She had been turned away when she felt something inside of her loosen from its hinge and take a nosedive into the port waters. The simple brush of a man's thigh, of a captain's hip against her backside when she wasn't expecting it, was most cherished even now. She sat sickly and confused in the middle of the deck, a full day later.

He had disappeared completely by the time she had gotten her bearings enough to turn around and find his face. He slithered into his cabin like a ghost, and hadn't been seen for the rest of the day, nor the next. But that didn't mean he wasn't in her fanatical thoughts, the ones she had collected throughout the afternoons as she mopped the deck, and peeled potatoes below, and slept in a swinging bed above a snoring crew, and even as she had spent an hour's fair time in the crow's nest.

It was here that she had grown tired and sick, and had been sent right back down to the ever unsteady, ever restless deck. Her legs wobbled back and forth as she worked between men who grumbled at her inability to mask her inexperience, and those who had no idea that she wasn't a _he_.

"Elijah, lad…" Gibbs came storming across the deck at her. "…these ere' nets need t' be carried 'cross to the stern. Can ye handle it?"

She looked down at the mass of tangled nets and sun dried seaweed, nodding to keep from opening her mouth at all, for the fear that more than words would come out.

"G'boy!"

Gibbs patted her on the back and she fell forward in her weaker state. She nearly tumbled into the nets before catching her balance and taking a deep breath. She managed to gather a few in her hands at first and begin slowly towards the back of the ship. Not knowing where they belonged, she found an empty corner under the stairs and stuffed them properly out of sight, then swerved and staggered back with a heavy head to collect more.

* * *

Jack had never known a touch so rewarding in all of his many years on the sea.

And in fact, they hadn't even left port yet when it all came to him. The boy had been turned from him, and blessings counted for it. To have brushed against one in an opposing direction would have left him only that much more befuddled. No boy, at least no boy or man he'd ever known, had felt so soft that way. It simply wasn't the norm.

It left his head reeling for most of that same afternoon, into the next morning and right down into the afternoon in which he sat now, his head in his hands over a constant, always unchanging map. The more he sat thinking about the touch of his new crew member, _Elijah_, the more he couldn't stop thinking of the blue eyes.

"Makes no sense at all." He shoved his compass across the table, leaned back and threw his boots on top of the charts angrily.

The spindle had whipped around for a full day, back and forth between the east and west of his room, sometimes even the north and south. He couldn't understand for the life of him why he made the connection in his mind every time he thought of that brush on deck or every time he saw the gasping face of a pleasured girl in an alleyway. How could there be any bridge between that sort of a gap?

Relaxing back, his hands twirling over his lap, he began to sense something stirring below and forced, no begged, for his brain to kick the urge of it away. He wasn't in the mood to bother with what he knew needed done, and as he rested his head further back, he bit his lip to ignore it.

Only for so long.

The eyes came back to him, the tender legs wrapped around a lover's hidden waist, the way her fingertips dug into the half bared skin of a man's neckline and weaved through his hair, just begging to be taken over and over again in the same secluded position. He saw all of the girl. He saw the way she lifted her skirts in the street to outrun her own larceny, the way her palms touched the dirt below her as it were the pounding, sweating chest of a conquest, and the way she hid behind the vines, her cerulean eyes peeking out at him for the whole of a half second.

Jack kept thinking about her until he realized what had already begun. His hand, pushed down into the tightness of his breeches, stroked over the ribbed, sensitive skin that had her still undetermined name all over it. He grasped his thick shaft, as if choking a man to death, and squeezed long and hard downward and back up. He imagined her soft, whimpering pink lips wrapped around him, mimicking the same movement with twice the heat and wetness. He pictured himself glancing down to see a pair of eyes glancing right back, with that oceanic flame set about in the center of them, tensing his every muscle until there was nothing left of him.

_"Bloody ell'…unngghh!"_

He groaned loudly as he felt himself nearing an end, and grabbed a hold of the smooth sacs. He pinched them hard before releasing again and feeling the stream of warm stickiness cover his fingertips. Suffocated by his tongue for a moment, he let every wave wash over him as he listened to the pattering of feet outside of his cabin doors. The steps were light and unsteady sounding, almost in a drunken slur, which made him dizzy with ecstasy as he tumbled down from the place his thoughts had left him to hang.

His breathing pattern slowly returned to normal and he could hold his eyes open, Jack cleaned himself off with a nearby cloth and then stood to re-adjust everything before stomping toward the doors. He needed fresh air, and sunlight, and to see the real ocean instead of the one that was haunting his mind and member every three and half seconds.

He swung the door back in a storming motion, half expecting to trip of his own accord due to his still blood deprived knees and toes. But instead, as he leaped out into the deck's late afternoon glow, he suddenly fell victim to a pummel of nets as he intercepted someone's path. Jack stumbled back on his boot heels with fine balance, shouting, "Oi!" The opposite man fell to the deck in a heap, nets and ropes covering his small legs. It was the boy, and he knew it right away.

"Need t' find those sea legs o' yours, boy."

Jack shook his head as he graciously knelt to help the boy up, pulling the nets from his legs carefully first. The younger man's head tilted back, his face shadowed somewhat by his hat as he looked at Jack. He half expected to turn and see a pair of dark eyes to match the snippets of black hair he'd noted before. But instead all he could see, was a drowning, magical blue.


	4. Catch of the Day

**

* * *

**

Catch of the Day

* * *

_You've got your ball.  
You've got your chain.  
Tied to me tight, tie me up again._

_Lost for you I'm so lost for you.  
You come crash into me  
and I come into you…  
In a boys dream._

-**Crash into Me** by Dave Matthews Band-

* * *

Beneath his stunned gaze, his hands haphazardly having fallen to rest on both of her knees where the ropes no longer covered them, Eva felt the energy return, only this time she understood what it was. The Captain's eyes held her in place for a long moment while he seemed to study her, not saying a word nor breathing an interest. She thought about waiting to see if he would speak his mind, but in fret and fear, she thought better of it and began scrambling from under his hands to get back to her feet.

"I…" she tried, brushing her pants off and coaxing out a boyish hue in her voice again. "…I'm so sorry Captain Sparrow…"

He remained kneeling close to the deck for a second longer while he listened to the strain in _her _voice. It was the first he'd heard of it, and although she worked to veil it with what she thought best sounded as a young man, he heard the glittering sweetness below the faux.

She began pulling the nets up to her chest again and stomped past him in a rush, apologizing still as he began to formulate words of his own. "I'll just be getting back to work--"

"Old' it."

The heels of her boots dug deep into the wood deck as she squeaked to a halt. Her eyes grew wide with her back turned to him and her hands twisted in the ropes nervously as she heard him behind, stepping once and then twice closer to her, his breath heavy and deliberate as he spoke.

"Elijah, is it?"

She bit her lip, too anxious to reply so instead she nodded same as with Gibbs. Jack snarled a little at the fib and stood firm and tall behind her.

"Turn bout', lad."

It wasn't a request or an option. By the richness of his clear cut demeanor, and by the harsh burn she felt on her neck as he stood above her, looking down her back, Eva knew it was an order. And thus she followed it slowly, spinning on her heels with her head hung low. Jack watched her movement, trying to contain the things it was stirring deep inside of him just to have her that close again. He managed to keep a crude expression on his face, very captain-like, and not falter for a second.

"Look up." Another command she followed hesitantly, raising her face until she saw the black ambers of his eyes down upon her own, melting all of her. Without breath to speak, she could only listen to him as he said in mockery, in shock, "_You_."

There was a fiery twist on the single word, one that made her gaze further itself into his own; curious at what it was she had heard. There was something about him; she just wasn't sure what yet.

"An' now it all makes sense."

Confusion covered her, and again she lost sight of what it was she thought she had seen. Her brow twisted a little under the brim of her hat and between the wisps of her shortened black hair as he came closer to her and without warning of any kind, grabbed her right upper arm harshly and tore off her father's hat.

"A mighty fine job 'eve done of yer air', lass."

"Captain Sparrow, I can expl--"

"No need. I wasn't born yesterday."

She struggled against his firm hand on her arm, but he was even stronger than she. "Please, I meant no harm."

He cackled and forced his face down to where hers was, "Coming board' a pirate ship without th' proper…err…" he fluttered his hand about as he glanced over her lower body, "…_means_…" she breathed deep at his implication as he went on. "…Is cause' fer punishment."

His fingers dug deeper through her ratty tunic and against her skin below as he ripped her body from the place on deck and pulled her along until he could make out Gibbs standing above them at the wheel with Cotton.

"Master Gibbs!"

The older man turned at the commanding shout from below and then quickly shuffled down the steps to make it to where Jack stood with Elijah oddly beneath his grasp.

"Cap'n."

"Was there an'thing at all, that struck yer eye as odd, when this lad asked board' me ship?"

Gibbs looked from Elijah's tired, frightened eyes, and then back up to Jack, shaking his head.

"Is this bout' the little mutt o' his, Jack? Cause' I only said yes--"

"Mutt?" Jack spat out, even more confused as Gibbs' eyes grew wide and he felt the girl tense under his hand. "Ye let a woman _and_ a begga' mutt board' my ship!"

Jack growled as Gibbs hurried for an explanation, not that it mattered either way. In mere seconds the entire crew had turned around on the deck to face the present conversation. The words their Captain had shouted out, although part of which they were already aware of since they had taken to the dog so light heartedly, left the second half as news. And good news at that.

Realizing what he had done as he glanced back to see two dozen glazed and hungry sets of eyes staring their way, he forced a jabbering Gibbs back towards his cabin and stormed through the doors behind him with Eva tripping on his boot heels from his seize on her. Once inside though, he threw her out to the open floor of the dimly lit cabin as he and Gibbs stood arguing for a moment without her.

"Sir, nuthin' gave th' impression…"

"M' well aware o' how fine a performance she can put on, mate."

"…gave th' name was 'Lijah. She looks like a boy, Jack…"

"Yes." He concluded angrily turning back to her. "Indeed she does."

Eva cringed under his snarling glare, the one that sent shivers up and right back down her spine in lightning force. The warmth she'd felt from them before was all but gone, and now she only feared for what he meant by _punishment. _Although she'd grown up hearing the occasional story about pirates, she'd never been officially informed of what the punishments were for a girl, pretending to be a boy, under the command of a Captain, who had already saved said girl's life, and learned she wasn't the boy she had acted to so be. That to her, was something entirely more complicated than just simple mutiny or being a stowaway.

Looking at him the way he did her, Eva tried to break her silence and explain again. And while she rambled on, even though it wasn't obvious to her, Jack and Gibbs stood together with crossed brows as they worked to silently determine just how she'd managed to appear masculine enough for her gig.

"…I was tired of being stuck in St. Pierre; there was nothing for me in that town any longer…"

Jack noticed that her chest was no broader than a young boys' and wondered what exactly was pressing her figure in. He remembered how delicate yet prominent her curves were in the dark light of the alley and in the bright sunlight the day before in the middle of the street. She had a beautiful form; one that had tormented him day and night since, and it disappointed him quietly to not have the same pleasure of seeing it now, even despite her crime aboard his ship.

"…my parents died years ago and even though I've taken care of myself, I wanted a real adventure. I wanted to be free out on open waters…"

Putting an end to his studying of her body for a minute, Jack latched on to a singular word in her prolonging speech and shifted his gaze up again as he bit his lip tight, to see her rushing eyes. She said she wanted to be _free_, the one thing he'd permanently been after. But what he wondered, as he stepped in close to her again, what was she trying to be free of?

Eva ended her talk as she watched him come nearer, his eyes fading from the torrent of anger they were before, to something more mysterious and subtle. She listened intently when he opened his mouth again.

"Wot' in damnation is yer real name, lass?"

Gibbs looked on at her curiously, having wanted to know the exact same thing for himself. Eva's eyes shifted from the older pirate, to the floor and the toe of her boots, and then back up to the Captain as she stammered.

"Evan…" she stopped with a deep breath as Jack's eyes grew somber over her, "Evangeline, sir. My name is Evangeline Marley."

He was halted in his thoughts. Indeed, he was jolted by it all. Her name could not have possibly suited who she was any better, and he felt blessed only to have finally heard it aloud. _Evangeline…Evangeline…Evangeline…_his mind shouted it over and over again until her voice put it all to a sound rest at the bottom of the trackless sea.

"Everyone has always called me Eva, though."

And there it was, _Eva_. The name he had so badly wanted to whisper out in ecstasy to his empty cabin as he had thought of her eyes and lips and hands in his from the street. It was the one thing he had wanted to say in his dreams as he thought about what his bed could feel like with her in it beside him. It had been as simple as that, _Eva. _

He brought himself to force the anger back into his eyes. No, of course he didn't want it there, but there were no options under the circumstances. And as much as he wanted to say her name, to whisper it back to her until she got undressed of her own accord and flew to his sheets, he had to follow the protocol of a proper, respected pirate Captain.

"Well, _Miss_ Marley…" he began, walking about her figure in the low light of the room as Gibbs watched and as he heard her breathing grip and expand nervously. "…we make port at Shipwreck Cove in three nights. Ye shall make yer leave there. An' there…" he grunted, trying to make himself sound tougher than he felt in that moment, "…ye shall 'ave yer so desired _'adventure'_."

Gibbs and Jack shared a quick and worried glance as they both thought subsequently of her conditions aboard the Pearl.

"As per the remainder o' yer time spent aboard…" Jack began again, coming about to see her eyes as they shown up at him and killed every muscle tightening within his body "…you will stay ere'."

Eva's eyes grew wide, only half understanding him as she motioned with her hand about the cabin.

"Here, sir?"

Jack tilted his head at her with a practiced grumble. "I will not ave' me crew losin' what marbles they ave' left o'er some virgin stowaway."

He turned on his heels in a mock of leave toward Gibbs and the door, only to be interrupted quickly by her rebuttal.

"But I'm not…" Jack stopped in his tracks with a wild grin that only his first mate could see. "…I mean…I can take perfect care of myself, Captain Sparrow."

With a single breath inhaled, he glanced over his shoulder at her and in a honed murmur replied, "Then ye'll do so behind locked doors."

And before she could argue further, the two men turned out of the room and she could hear the jingle of keys as the lock on the double cabin doors clicked shut.

* * *

Eva stood there watching after their shadows through the glass for a long time once they were even gone. She couldn't understand why he hadn't tossed her overboard, or why he hadn't purposefully thrown her to the crew for sport of punishment. How could having her spend the long days and nights at sea, locked in his cabin, be any proper form of punishment in a pirate's eyes? And why was he allowing her to make a free run onto the shores of a place called Shipwreck Cove?

It baffled her for hours on end, as she fell into the long window bench behind his desk and charting table, watching the horizon every few seconds, between pages of his numerous books. There was everything from astronomy to ancient geometry and philosophy. He was well studied for a man of the criminal sea, and this above all else interested her as she sat skimming words and ideas throughout the day.

She never shed a tear of her position, having only to follow orders to stay alive as it were. Eva was determined to do what was necessary to keep herself from finding the gallows or the brig or wherever he had thought of sending her otherwise. She would be free at port, and then she could take leave to search the world over a hundred times on her own. She would sail with more trustworthy sailors; perhaps even find a ship captained by a woman, if such a thing existed. She would taste exotic foods and meet interesting people who spoke different languages. And she would be happy, finally.

These thoughts were the ones that put her to sleep after a long while. And when Jack unlocked the doors in his return to the cabin after the sun began to sink low, the sight he found was one he hadn't expected at all. His little hostage, _Evangeline…Eva…_laid stretched across the window bench behind his desk chair, her face curled into her arm against a few small pillows, and a book on Greek goddesses resting open on her thigh.

He imagined he could have so taken her like that, tossed the book about powerful female deities aside and made her his true prisoner for the rest of the evening. She had made it very clear in both their first meeting and in her earlier, elated confession, that she was no chaste soul. And yet despite this, Jack could not disturb the strangely innocent peace she seemed to be wound up in and instead only removed the book and the others piled high on the floor beside her, and tore an old quilt his mother had once sewn from the nearby cabinet to cover her with. He even let his finger dance lightly over her shortened hair for moment, as he dwelled on missing the long, dark tresses he had seen curl over her free shoulder during her passionate stride in the midnight air of Martinique.

Sure, he could have moved her to the more comfortable bed. But he knew he himself would be up into long hours charting a course to the Cove especially for her, and as her punishment, her only punishment, he left her where she was, so that he could hear every breath she made just behind him throughout the night. For in his mind, to hear a rebel in perfect serenity was the most frightening penalty of all.


	5. Salt in the Wounding Flame

**

* * *

**

Salt in the Wounding Flame

* * *

_They look straight through me, these eyes  
Seeking more wisdom than I have to give away  
Realize, realize  
what you are..._

What you've become,  
Just as I have  
Are you and I so unalike?

_-_**What You Are**by Dave Matthews Band-

* * *

"_You'll leave er' with Teague…let im' dash er' dreams of traveling amuck with philosophy an' verse…" _

Jack tapped his chin with the sharp end of his charting compass, his boots kicked up onto the edge of his desk as he faced into the direction of his bed, watching where Eva's form moved slightly up and down in short breaths of sleep. He continued mumbling silently to himself as he plotted out his own confusing situation.

"…_empty er' pockets o' whatever she's brought board'…then send her tumblin' into the Cove. She'll hold er' own…and Lizzie's there t' watch after er'…"_

A smile crept across his face for a moment as he saw in his mind's eye, the charming missus to his dear, cursed friend William, and what sort of things she could possibly teach little Eva of. He pictured the two of them locked away for hours in the Cove, alone, doing things that perhaps men should never know of. With a sigh of curiosity to himself he turned around to lean over his desk again, to focus on the task at hand. But from across the other side of the room, lying with wide and alert eyes in an old wooden chair, was a tiny mutt. It was Eva's, and had come with the territory of his deciding to lock her away for the week. He grumbled a little and revealed his angry teeth in the low candlelight, imitating that of a meaner, bigger beast than he. Dill howled at the wounding face and covered his nose with a paw, while Jack laughed and relaxed back in his chair.

"Dogs an' women in me cabin. I'm done for."

A ruffle of sound came from the bed and he turned his eyes sideways to watch the movement under the sheets. While he couldn't see her face, a tiny foot poked out from the end of the blankets, with toes wiggling in the orange light of the early morning room.

Under his breath, as he caught Eva sitting up in the bed, he softly hummed, _"Mornin', sweet woe."_

Her head was heavy with the swaying of the ship through the last four days and nights, and she held her cheeks with a flush lull as she looked across from the bed to see Jack's eyes hung low, but his body facing her in his creaking chair. She tried to let her eyes grow accustom to the change in light, and stretched under the blankets, not completely rested but as well as she feared she could be.

Through the week, she had kept to herself in the cabin, read books, studied charts aimlessly, drank herself into a stupor or two same as her Captain, and eventually passed out in one of the many corners of the room. Only this morning, for the first time, did she find herself actually in his bed. She hadn't wanted to sleep here, for fear he would either hurt her for stealing his bed, or that he would take advantage of her during the night. But in all truth, she had remembered falling asleep near the window again, and so knew this had been his personal doing. He put her here and she didn't know what to think of it.

She coughed a little out of tire and then spoke quietly. "Did you not sleep because of me, Captain Sparrow?"

He glanced up finally, catching her smoky blue eyes in the dark light. He noted then how they so often changed from light, to dark, deep or shallow, at the drop of a single word or time of day.

"I don't sleep, lass." He replied darkly, shifting in his chair. "Ne'er really have."

Eva fell even more silent at this and wondered just why that was. Of course she wasn't going to ask him though, she didn't know him half well enough to go into that sort of territory, and she had a feeling that if she even so much as tried to, he would shun her on the topic anyway himself. Instead she slid to the edge of the bed, still in one of her father's tunics and set of pants, and then eased her bare feet onto the floor.

Jack watched every single movement she made, trying to remember as many of them as he could for his quick moments of privacy over the next few days. And when her toes hit the floor a few feet away from him, he decided he would try to remain civil, in a way she hadn't seen of him. He was so busy trying to be tough and commanding and the scariest man on the sea that he had forgotten to be the man who had helped her out of the dirt in the street as guards had tried to trample her.

"Hungry?" He asked, making a gesture to a nearby table covered in fresh fruits and breads and meats.

Eva looked at it but then turned her gaze off a little from him.

"Ye should eat despite wanting t' make a stand against me, love."

She turned her face shortly back to him, accepting his words as nothing but truth. He was right, she needed to eat instead of just defying his every small attempt. Eva nodded slightly and then pushed away from the bed to walk to the table. She dug through a basket of fruit, picking at a few bruised apples, popping a couple of sour grapes into her mouth with a wince that Jack silently laughed at, and then settled with one of the bananas resting on top.

His brow perked at her choice. It was his favorite, and he watched as she leaned on the table feet away, peeling back at the soft fruit. He eyed her lips suspiciously, sensing just how sweet and saccharine they were by the way they shone in the mix of candles and sunlight. _Lips like sugar…_he thought, biting down on his bottom one to keep from moaning or doing something completely irrational. He held a glare fast to her mouth as he watched it glide toward the curved tip of the banana, her lips pressing down the supple rod as she gorged it slowly, savoring it.

_She doesn't ave' a clue wot' she's doing…_he sighed in thought as he felt his every muscle squeeze tight inside of him, his pants urging with the flow of unconscious blood, hardening his entire form in the chair. Jack's eyes were brooding and dark as he caught his breath to miss not a single moment of what was taking place before him. Eva could feel his gaze after a few seconds though and looked over with the banana between her lips, to see him staring her down desperately, his knuckles fierce with what looked like pain on the arms of his chair.

She gently mumbled over the tip of the fruit in her mouth, "Wha'?"

And although she saw it as an innocent question of concern for his odd state, Jack could feel his pants pushing against the thickness they couldn't contain any longer, his lips parched with the need to touch the wetness of hers, his eyes burning with hers so focused on him.

And yet it wasn't until she took a sharp bite of the fruit, her teeth hitting one another with a full mouth of sugary ecstasy, that Jack quickly stomped his boots back down to the wood floor, kicked his chair away into the back of the room, and flew past her in a rush to get to the door. His head was a swell of eager and pleading need, and he knew that to stay in that sweltering room with her another moment longer, would lead to nothing but danger.

He would give in. He knew it.

So instead he jumped out of the cabin and slammed the door behind him as Eva watched him disappear through the glass. She chewed on the fruit in her mouth while her brow twisted up and down. When she swallowed it all completely, she was still looking at the glass doors leading to wherever he had evaporated to, and then she quietly laughed to herself before looking over at Dill.

"Please, tell me you think he's as peculiar as I do?"

* * *

When he was safe from the cabin's lust filled air, Jack stammered across the deck and hurried down to the galley without a single word to the fresh waking crew, not even to Gibbs who hollered after him from the wheel a half dozen times. He took the steps two by two and rushed through the men's quarters until he came to the second stairwell leading to the cargo hold. He locked the door behind him, then took those steps very gently one at a time. His body was tense, his pants nearly too tight to walk, and he eased himself down on the bottom step to release the demons that had filled him up.

He sat stroking himself loose again as he thought about Eva and that damned banana and everything else he'd seen for four days longer than he would have preferred. He thought of how she looked like a sensual little pixie as she woke up in his bed, with her ruffled crop of black hair and tantalizing eyes of indigo flash. He thought for a long time even following the desperate spill of himself, about how he would probably never stop thinking about her, even once she was in the safe, teaching hands of his father. Eva would somehow always be there, he just knew it.

When he returned to the deck, Gibbs was waiting with a curious eye and a list of questions concerning his Captain's health. The old man worried too much, but it was better to have questions about whether he had taken ill, than inquiries about a certain hostage in his room. So he endured the long conversation with his friend as he stood with him at the wheel most of the day. Every skipping mile of waves they passed through, he felt the weight on his head growing lighter and felt better than he had before.

And so when the sun eventually began to fall down on the horizon, he took his routine leave of the upper deck and slowly walked back to his cabin. He thought he would try to find Eva and finally get down to the bottom of why she was even here, maybe make an offer for her to sit and have dinner with him, or even just share a bottle of rum while he questioned every last bit of her turbulent and gypsy like existence.

This plan though was halted when he turned the knob on his cabin door to reveal that it was unlocked, and that he must have been the one to forget to lock it in his rush from her that morning. He darted inside, suddenly nervous, and walked around in the empty space of his cabin, not seeing a soul. There were a few candles still burning low, but no noise of any kind to speak of, until he heard a quick and hushed whimper from behind a nearby curtain.

Jack stepped towards the hidden alcove of the room at the same time that the red silk curtains shuffled around frantically, and Eva fell through them, barely catching her balance with a torn chemise, an arm gushing with blood and a petrified wince. He immediately felt himself rise to nothing but anger, honest anger and rage this time, as he forced his way past her. She fell hard against the wall she was gasping by, her head hitting the rough wood as tears flowed down from her eyes and her legs shook. There were no words spoken between her or Jack before he stormed through the curtain.

She breathed deep and hard as her tears fell wilder, and as the sound of thrashing fists and grunts of fighting men covered her senses. She heard someone fall to the wood floor in agony, a slash of a blade or two, and it made her too fall down against the wall until she hit the floor in a tired heap.

"I should kill ye fer the fish t' enjoy!"

She knew it was the Captain, which meant he couldn't be the one on the floor, and this helped her to breathe a little easier. He was the one fighting for her, and because of that, she couldn't help but to silently pray for him as she felt her head weigh heavy from all the blood loss in her forearm. Her head lolled a bit as she kept listening to the sound of boots and growls of pain and then the soft swoosh of the curtain overhead again as she saw a man's leg step move her.

Jack knelt down and eased her good arm around his neck, through a few of his dreads, as he eased her up to her feet and slowly walked her to the bed. He had little concern for the white sheets beneath her and only worried about the color as it faded away, leaving her cheeks as white as the linens themselves. He rushed around her quickly, from the bed to the nearby table for a bottle of rum, to a cabinet for towels, and then back to her as he pulled a chair up.

"Bloody ell', e' did a number on yer arm." He sighed angrily and draped a long cloth over his already somewhat bloodied pants leg, and then rested her arm down onto it as well.

Eva watched everything going on, but was only half aware of it. She could see Jack's eyes shift from her arm to hers, and felt the softness of them for the first time in a week aboard the ship. He was a different man altogether, one she didn't realize even existed, and it made her head and knees weaker as she sat before him.

"Ere'", he stated flatly as he held up the bottle of rum toward her lips. "Take a deep sip."

Eva moved her mouth over the rounded edge of the bottle as Jack tipped it carefully for her, and she downed a good sized gulp before he brought it away and began pouring some over the gash in her arm. She screamed out loudly at this, now fully awake and conscious again. Her heart pounded suddenly with the burn of what felt like a thousand needles piercing the cut at once, as she threw her head back with a bite of her tongue, her good hand digging into the sheets at her side.

Jack eyed her with torn emotion, certain by his judgment of her so far that she was strong enough to handle it, and was thoroughly impressed as she did. The blood came away from her wound with every swipe of the rum induced cloth he made, until it began spilling through thin from the alcohol and he took to adding pressure, examining her eyes as they rolled into her head with a whimper.

"Ave' to stop the bleeding."

Eva sighed with a guttural grown and returned quietly, "I know that."

His eyes shot up at her tight lipped spat. "No need t' thank the man who's rescued ye twice."

She heard both the defeat and annoyance in his voice, but wasn't interested in falling to his gentility. After all, he was the one who had left her in this room, unlocked and open to any man who saw fit to test the knob. And one certainly had.

"I acknowledge that you're tending to my wound, but I won't show gratitude for your own mistake."

Her eyes were angry as she looked down at him and it made him press harder onto her cut, deepening the amount of alcohol entering it until she cried out again.

"I wouldn't ave' forgotten th' damned lock if ye hadn't set 'bout me room like a siren this morning."

Eva's mouth gaped at his words and she bit her lip with the pressure of his hand. He was helping her, yes, but making the pain of getting to the fix twice as bad on purpose. She refused to stand down, it wasn't in her nature, whether he knew this yet or not.

"Your weaknesses are your own. You needn't take them out on my arm!"

She tore her arm from him and pushed her weight back further onto the bed, trying to get away. But he was stronger, and he grasped her bare ankle, tugging her back until she nearly fell into his lap, and then growled up into her face.

"Sit still an' shut it. Then it won't urt'."

Eva too barked back with a scowl. "No."

"Ah I ave' a masochist in me bed, eh?" He returned, pressing down one last time with the cloth before dropping it into a bowl on the floor and grabbing the bottle of rum again. "Welcome t' my world, lass."

She squeezed her eyes shut as his warm breath blew over the open wound, making her entire body tingle against her will. He had a way of doing something to her, and had, even though he made her just as angry as easily. Eva sat still as asked, but ignored his face completely. She didn't answer his question and instead openly shared her horrific thoughts on her attacker.

"I tried to stop him, but he just grew more livid with me. It would have hurt so terribly, I know it…with how he touched me."

Jack turned his eyes to the curtain, where no one and nothing was moving or sounding out. He was certain that his crew man McAllister was well on his way to bleeding to death, and rightfully so.

"He said he was going to punish me the way you should have already."

He said nothing to this, and instead returned to Eva's arm with a needle and thread in hand, feeling her try to pull away anxiously. But he held her arm softly, with reassuring eyes.

"Please, don't." She tugged more, "It will heal itself. I'm alright."

"Yer right," he returned mockingly and pulled back forcefully until her arm was back on his lap, "T'will mend with infection an' then yer own death. Now ere'…" he lifted the rum to her mouth again as she took it from him. "…drink yerself numb. Works fer me."

Before he looked down to focus on stitching her arm, he could have sworn he saw a faint smile leave her lips.

Eva was grateful to see he knew what he was talking about, for by the time she'd finished off half the bottle and handed it back, she couldn't even feel it as he poured more onto the wound, or as he traced over it with the pad of his thumb. She was numb to all of it, and glad evermore as she began watching him move the needle through her skin and back out with the thread attached. He was intent and focused on her arm, as if it were the most delicate thing in the world, and she watched him carefully while his eyes were turned down, trying to comprehend all of him she could.

He'd been so mean to her all this time, and even more, he was awkward that morning as he ran from her with no explanation or real point. The first time she had shared a moment with him, eyes locked as she was brought to the height of climax in the middle of the evening alley in St. Pierre, was embarrassing to her. He hadn't moved for so long, and just stood looking at her, almost contently. And then, when he rescued her from being torn to pieces by the admiral's lead of horses, she had been so full of guilt for leaving without a word. But she didn't have a choice, she couldn't let him know her then, not like that.

Perhaps though, if she had known that the mysterious man who had stumbled upon her twice in town would end up being her captor and captain aboard the ship she choose to hide on, she might have done something differently beforehand.

Eva watched his eloquent fingers as they laced the thread through her arm over and over, and became so caught up in the sparkle of the trinkets in his thick hair, and the rings that stroked her skin without feeling, that she suddenly opened her mouth with the only thing she could think to ask.

"I take it you are an expert at that from personal experience?"

Jack's eyes started to turn upward, but he stopped himself with a simple grin and went back to sewing.

Eva was still interested though, "How many wounds have you taken like this, Captain Sparrow?"

He almost refused to continue answering her when she called him that, he was getting tired of the decorum between them. Anyone else, Lizzie even, he expected and desired to refer to him as Captain. But with Eva, for some reason, it didn't suit. He wanted to hear her call by him informally, like a lover would.

"Jack." He stated, finally looking up as he paused for a moment with the needle. "Try, _Jack_?"

She was shocked he had made the move for her to call him by his first name and not by his title. Eva thought all Captains wanted to be reminded constantly of their high standing. But she nodded graciously and began again.

"Very well, _Jack_…what kind of wounds have you endured to become so good at that?"

"All kinds ye can think of."

"Bullet wounds, surely." She replied and watched as he leaned back in the chair and moved his free hand to draw down one side of his tunic, revealing the bullet bruises above his heart. Eva leaned in for a closer look but he cut her off by returning to her arm.

"What about blade wounds, how many?"

"Lost count."

"Where are they?"

"All over." He replied with a roll of his eyes downward, not expecting what was about to come from her mouth.

Eva tilted her face down to watch his work more closely and whispered, "May I see some?"

Yes, that was unexpected even for him and for his situation. He chuckled darkly a little and ignored the interest to finish off the last few laces of her stitching. Eva watched, but didn't speak again for a long moment or two. Not until she caught a glimpse of the raised burn wound on his mid right forearm, the one in the marking of a _P_. She knew what it meant, but still reached out in curiosity and traced it quickly with her finger before Jack moved his arm away.

"That one is important, isn't it?"

A shuddering burn flowed over his arm when she touched him so softly there. He sighed and said quietly, as an afterthought, "_Necessary_, twould' be the more proper word."

Eva smiled at him though his eyes weren't facing her. "Do all pirates have to get that eventually?"

"No." He replied fast, shaking his head a little before finding her gaze. "Only th' foolish ones."

She didn't want to believe that and so held his eyes for a minute longer before he turned to cut the thread at the end of her wound, and she whispered quietly over his head, with as much sincerity as she could muster, "Or the brave ones perhaps."

It warmed over him to hear that, and especially with the way she had of saying it. He wasn't much of a sentimental man, or linguist of sentimental phrases, but those words and the honesty of which she spoke them to him, were enough to do him in for a quite long time. He hid this well though and gently moved her finished arm onto her own lap, and then cleaned up the bowl, cloths and chair quietly throughout the room.

Eva's eyes followed his steps, knowing what she wanted to say to him but not sure when it would be right. So she waited and watched him move between the room and the alcove in which she'd been attacked, cleaning the mess she couldn't and didn't want to see. He made no attempt to pull the man out and she knew why this was too, her spine shivering at the thought of it.

It wasn't until he turned toward the cabin doors, ready to get assistance with removing the hopeless brute from his room, that Eva knew what and how to say what she needed.

"Thank you, _Jack_…" she said quietly, but loud enough to make him pause in his path to the door. He turned back to see her standing at the edge of the bed. "…for stitching my arm so kindly." She trailed over the rigid thread marks with her finger and held his eyes in hers from yards away in the room.

And before he turned out, she saw his light, lazy smirk as he replied, "Yer welcome…_Eva_."


	6. Drunken Lullabies

**

* * *

**

Drunken Lullabies

* * *

_Between a man and a woman  
Life begins again  
Between love and confusion  
Lies only pain_

_-_**Between a Man and a Woman** by Flogging Molly_-_

* * *

Without a day's food, the combination of extreme blood loss, rum and a swaying ship can be a powerful tonic for anyone unsuspecting or knowing. And Eva just so happened to be that lucky victim.

Another entire day had come and gone like the wind through the sails of the Pearl, leaving her stitched, bruised, tired and drunk in Jack's bed. She had attempted numerous times through the long night and afternoon to steady her body on the bed, with pillows surrounding her form, blankets covering every inch of her to create a blackness that soothed. But none of it stopped the waves or the sickness in her stomach, let alone the want and need for even more rum to ease the pain.

After Gibbs had brought in dinner for her, and removed the lunch plate that she had been unable to stand and walk to, she decided she was going to have to move, to try something else but lying down. Eva slid from the bed, wearing only a shirt that came down to just above her knees. It was one Jack had set out for her early in the morning, insisting she change from the rags her now locked up attacker had left her in. His name, she had found out in a brief stint of comfort, was Sully McAllister. And he had indeed been intent on only one thing, to rape and discard of her leftover bones when no one was looking.

For this, Jack set the crew to mend his wounds and lock him in the brig for the remainder of the journey to the Cove. Eva had thanked him with a smile before falling onto the bed in sheer agony again.

She pranced about the room now though, testing out her 'sea legs' and trying to understand how any one of these men could drink and walk on this ship at the same time. She denounced it a prime art, simply because she couldn't get a hold of it herself. Tables were her enemies, chairs, cabinets, even her boots on the floor as they tripped her.

"No doubt, at this rate I'll be belly-up before I make it to the next shore."

Eva mumbled as she reached for a pair of old breeches Jack had also laid across the back of a chair for her. She managed to get only one leg in before tumbling backwards to the floor again, laughing.

"Proof confirmed."

She grinned wildly as she pulled her other leg inside from the wood planks, quickly lacing them up to fit. Her father's hat was thrown down beside the bed alongside her troublesome boots, and she made sure these were secure as well, and then pulled herself to her boot heels, wobbling a little, but eventually managing to stay straight. She saw the cabin doors ahead of her, with a gleam of the last light of the day shining through, and decided on what would be best.

"Hostage or not, I need fresh air." She stomped toward the doors, pulling out a pin that was being used to hold down the fold of her old boots, and stood picking at the lock for minutes until it finally clicked open. Eva smiled and turned the knob. "Sorry _Captain_ Jack."

The door swung outward and she followed its lead, feeling the warmth of early evening dance immediately on her cheeks. The choice had already been a good one, as she tiptoed to stay under the radar and tried not to look up from below the brim of her hat. She focused on the planks of the deck, counting cracks between them as her boots swaggered back and forth same as her head. The rum was still alive and burning through her veins, but it at least felt better out here in the late sunset; rich and calm.

Only a few crew members dodged her in their duties with ropes and tools and swords of all kinds. She heard shouting all around her, above her head where she tried to envision men dangling from the ropes like she remembered from her freer days on the Pearl, and perhaps even one in the crow's nest. Scurrying boots and bare feet were all she could see, and she felt better for it. If she looked up now, Eva knew she would eventually come into contact with the person who would probably punish her for escaping the cabin. No, she only wanted to breathe fresh air, collect herself again, and then return to his bed.

And a fine idea it was, until she felt the deck rattle beneath her as the ship capped over a large wave. She could hear what sounded like cracking wood all around her, a taut whip of ropes overhead, and a gust through the sails, before she realized she had lost all balance and was falling to the deck without hope of catching herself. Her bottom hit the harsh wood, causing her to bite her tongue from the slam of her body downward. Little did she realize the comedy of her actions, or how they were warming a tired Captain's otherwise battered spirit.

Jack stood to the side of the wheel, his eyes fashioned in faux toward the horizon ahead, while they were really fixed upon the mess of a spill Eva had taken just below him near the mast. He watched as she struggled on hands and knees to get back up. He watched as she pressed both of her palms to the short black hair at her temples, grinding her teeth in what looked like torturous aching. He watched as she placed her hat back on, held her hands out in front of her, and stepped as lightly as a dancer on his deck.

'_Girl's as daft as th' rest o' me crew.' _

He chuckled lowly with a quick eye from her to Cotton beside him, a scowl at the parrot as he shrieked for attention, and then a darting glance back down to see Eva clinging to the mast pegs. Fresh air looked good on her, and he didn't even bother letting himself get angry over the fact that she escaped her cage. In fact, he was impressed by this most of all and deliberated what her tools used for such a feat must have been.

She didn't stumble anymore, and seemed to be in idle rest at the mast as she leaned against it, her hat tipped down, obviously to give the impression of her being one of his crew. But Jack knew better, because he'd studied every bit of her, and knew what she looked like from all angles and from all light sources.

"Mr. Cotton…" he suddenly chanted, stepping back from the wheel. "Take o'er."

The old man jumped in with his rigid hands firm on the wheel. Jack nodded once to the parrot, then side waltzed toward the stairwell, taking the steps as slowly as he could, watching Eva's head loll under her hat. He made it to the deck, but kept his movement paced with a wandering eye over how well she wore his clothes. Yes, he liked that part best and revealed a glint of gold teeth in the last light of day for it.

When he was within mere feet of her person, he stopped, his right hand tucked neatly into his sash and belt, while the other played at the dingles on his chin, twisting each bead.

"Do tell me dearie..." his voice was deep and radiated through Eva's bones. She knew who it was and yet was too fearsome to turn her head upward at it. "…wot' gypsy trick did ye use t' flee yer lock and chain this round?"

His boots inched a step closer and came into her hidden, brimmed vision as she smirked.

"Or is it a curse ye put on me ship?" Eva's eyes rolled under her hat as he went on fluidly with his arms flailing where she couldn't see them. "Are ye a gypsy _ghost_, perchance? Come t' give an' old ship its due?"

Finally she whispered back at him. "If I were, I would have floated away days ago."

"Not liking th' company?"

"The company is merely, _me_."

At this she finally turned her face up to catch his eyes under the hat. She had forgotten how much she missed them since he left the cabin that morning. They were so vast, like the ocean itself.

"Bored then, is it?" He asked back when he could see her eyes. "Another day o' sailing with th' lot o' us, and th' Cove should cure that."

"And what if I don't like it there?"

Her face was sincere when she asked this, and it pleased him, to know he wasn't the only one that was capable of putting into question a place that everyone else in the seas seemed to adore. Although, she knew nothing about it, which was probably where the inquiry even spurned from. He stepped in closer toward her and grinned lightly.

"T' be quite honest with ye…"

She scoffed to interrupt him, "Honest, you? A pirate?"

"Yes. Honest. Me. An' that's pirate _captain_, lass."

"Oh excuse me."

She threw up her hands in mock defense, making him smirk from the corner of his mouth without even knowing it. His reply was defiant, as the battle ensued between their words.

"_Cynics_ will be punished same as counterfeit young boys, ye know."

She grinned innocently, holding his gaze and coming nearer to him. "And yet here I stand before you Captain Sparrow, still awaiting the first of my charges…"

Jack felt his knees lock up on him, same as his once beating heart and once freed loins. But he kept himself clear with speech.

"If ye don't approve o' the penalty which I've set in place…" he turned on his heels with a sway of his hand, "…rest assured I can find ye a plank t' walk down…"

Eva jumped into step behind him, following as he swaggered back to the cabin.

"No, don't be silly. Your punishment is adequate enough."

A smile crept on his turned face as he sensed defense in her voice.

"Although I do hope you'll still tell me all you know of this Cove in which you're sending me."

He kept walking, glad she was tagging along as they made their way back into the cabin. Eva shut the door behind her out of respect only, and came to the middle of the room as Jack searched out a fresh bottle of rum from his cabinet. When he stood tearing through a cork, he saw her sitting at the end of his bed, legs curled like a child and eyes wide with curiosity. This was the other way he liked her (Not that he didn't like her in all possible ways thus far.)

He sat down wide-legged in a chair below where she was perched on the bed, his arms resting over the wooden back that faced her, tilting the bottle out.

"Drink?"

She held up her hands against it. "No, I've already had too much."

"Too much? There's no such thing."

"I'll drink myself to death."

Jack chuckled and replied simply, "Yo ho," with another shove of the bottle at her.

Eva hesitated a second more, before ripping it from his hands and downing almost a third. He wasn't entirely shocked by it, since she'd helped to finish off most of his supply throughout the week. He liked a woman who could drink and not look sloppy doing it. A woman who could hold her own, even when she probably shouldn't be. Eva filled that description nicely to him.

She handed him back the bottle with a wipe of his shirt sleeve over her mouth, and he wished he could have been nothing but mere tunic fabric in that moment. Jealous of a shirt and losing his mind more and more by the second; he knew the rum would be more than sport tonight, no doubt.

"So how do you know about this place, _Shipwreck_?"

"Sure ye want t' go down that path, luv?"

Her brow was fixed in confusion but she nodded.

"Tis' not a pretty one…"

"No true path is ever a pretty one, sir."

Her mind fascinated him, the mixed up, backwards way he had begun to notice it worked in. It seemed familiar in a way, but he couldn't place its origin.

"Shipwreck Island's where some o' the finest men on th' sea go t' die. Sound fanciful 'nough?"

She didn't say anything at his joking attitude.

"It's where me own father will rest is' bones…whene'er he finally decides t' let go."

"Your father?"

He nodded with a sip of the bottle.

"Is he a pirate too?"

"Was…_is_…"

"And he lives there with other pirates?"

He was excited by her pursuit of information. "Some. Mostly washed up drunks an' poets."

"You joke."

"Wish I knew how t' joke 'bout that place."

Eva smiled and pressed her elbows in her curled legs as she leaned on her fists toward Jack more.

"Is it only men who live there?"

"God, no!"

He belted out with a chuckle as he stood up from the chair and pushed it aside. She watched him stammer about for a minute, removing his coat, his hat, boots and effects. When he was done, he came toward the bed, crawling up and sitting against the pillow induced headboard with his bare feet and bottle of rum. Eva had yet to see him in this sort of comfort, this way, and it made her happy in a way she couldn't quite explain. He seemed suddenly human to her, not so much like the force he acted upon. She turned toward him on the bed, legs still curled and elbows still leaning with inquisitiveness.

"So then, tell me of the women. Are they nice? Are they pirates too? Are there women pirates at all?"

His eyes crossed with the throes of questioning, and he slowly replied to each.

"Some o' them are nice, but some o' them wouldn't think twice 'bout taking a limb from ye. Trust me…" She gulped but he went on humored. "By me own reckoning there be a single female pirate in all th' Cove. There's plenty o' them elsewhere's though."

"What is her name?"

Jack watched Eva's eyes suddenly light up with a spark of green amid all the blue, and although he knew he could have sat there watching her eyes change and shift all night, he fell back to her question.

"Er' name is Liz'beth."

"Elizabeth. And is she nice?"

A smirk came to his face, one he often caught himself making at the thought of Lizzie and couldn't stop.

"She's a fine woman. Th' only one I'll let on me ship in fact."

A little put off by this, Eva said meekly, "I suppose some women are intended for the sea, and others are merely intended for housework."

Jack knew he'd hit a nerve, one he could sense many people had before him.

"An' which are you?

She turned her eyes up from where they had fallen in defeat and answered him simply.

"I haven't a clue."

"I'll wager I do." He replied with a coy grin, scooting closer to her on the mattress. "In fact, I'll wager ye fall on a list entirely out o' range. One that no one else does."

"Meaning what?"

"Meaning…" he sighed, corking the bottle as he slumped with his head resting on the bed beside her knee, staring up at her. "…yer a mystery t' not only th' world, but yerself as well. Ye ave' t' find who you are, long before ye can sail th' seas or mother children or do anything right fer yerself."

She appreciated these words, for they were the only true and reliable ones she'd ever gained from anyone before, and a mere stranger at that.

"And do you think…" she began, tracing circles and stars on the soft blankets beside her. "…do you think I will find who I am at Shipwreck Island?"

Jack eased up onto his elbow, with his face coming that much closer to where hers hung. He could feel her breath on his nose and through the bristles of his mustache, same as she could feel his body's heat warm her. They were frozen for a moment, she contemplating the question, and he contemplating the answer.

With genuine eyes he said, "It's me own black eart's promise, that ye will."

That was more than enough for her. And so they stayed there for a little while longer, Jack telling her of some of the things the island had to offer, describing the fine gold sand beaches and caves to explore, and even going so far as to tell her a few of his stories from when he was a child at the Cove. She liked that part the best, and wanted to hear more, but could tell it was a soft place for him and only let Jack tell what he wished and then quit.

After an hour or so he went to charting at his desk, and although they passed slight conversation back and forth, a few laughs, and a bottle of rum, Eva found herself mostly preoccupied with her nose deep into the pages of a book he had on a woman named Grace O'Malley, _The Pirate Queen. _Like Eva, Grace was of Irish heritage and had sailed for decades with a fierce hand and loyal crew of men, tearing apart every coast and port she so desired to. She decided right then and there that one day she would live up to what Grace O'Malley had done, and that eventually perhaps, she would find herself sailing the same waters as Jack Sparrow again.

More hours passed by with Jack's compass tight to his charts, hardly wavering save for a drink or two, a glance over at Eva or two. And when he had finally seen enough spinning dials and dotted lines for one night, he shoved back on his chair and rose up at the foot of the bed to see her passed out drunk and worn, same as most other nights. She charmed him innocently, with a large leather bound book folded open on her chest, a hand tossed above her head weaving through the space where a head full of black curls should have been, and her legs tangled to one side on the mattress. He was actually beginning to grow more than accustomed to this sight.

The only difference was, that on this night, her last night on the ship before they made it to the Cove, Jack decided he had to take advantage of the open space beside her and share the bed. He was exhausted, but even more than that, he wanted to be close to her, he needed to in fact, and this would be the only possible way of it at last.

He carefully lifted the book away from her, eyeing as she sifted onto her side and curled with her face deep in one of the pillows. He pulled back the blankets and crawled beneath them until he was inches from her body, and then threw them over-top of her tiny form as well. He craned his neck back to blow out the last of the candles on his bedside table, and then in the darkness of the room and bed, surrounding by nothing but feminine body heat, he slid toward where he felt his borrowed clothes draping against her skin.

When she didn't wake from the touch, he slipped an arm around her waist pulling her into his chest, and shut his eyes against the curl of the waves for the first real time in months.


	7. Where the Wind Ends

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* * *

**

Where the Wind Ends

* * *

_You, you never looked so good  
Sipping life down like I wish I could  
But these sober tears are all that's left to shed  
Sank his soul, now made of lead._

_Tomorrow comes a day too soon. _

-**Tomorrow Comes a Day Too Soon** by Flogging Molly-

* * *

It felt like a century had passed over Eva's head as she stirred in waking the next morning. Something was tying her to this world, like the string of a fishing pole, or the rope of a high mast. Something was refusing to let her fly away, to sail away. She crossed her brow with a squeeze of her eyes against the heat and sunlight of the room around her, and she felt whatever was tied to her grow stronger, the seize reacting to her own muscles. And subconsciously, she found herself clinging tighter to whatever it was, as if she never wanted to leave the ground, or the bed.

She moaned softly in tire, but her eyes fluttered open as soon as she felt her hand slide across the linen she thought was of the sheets, and instead came into contact with warm skin. There, beneath her as she lay with a gaping mouth and stormy eyes, was Jack. He was the rope and the string, the embrace that kept her safe on the imaginary shore.

Eva bit her lip, not sure how to react or what to do, and instead rested her head back from where it had come on his chest as she felt it rise and fall with his deep, solemn breathing. He was half awake, she could sense it by the beat of his heart, but at least he was half asleep in that point. He swore he never slept. What had she done to him?

As her mind rushed with the possibilities before her, she felt his arm around her waist soften but pull her closer, as his head turned for his lips to press into her short hair. She remained absolutely still, perfectly comfortable, but very confused. It wasn't until she heard him groan and stretch beneath her that she moved to rest next to him instead, peering sideways down to his eyes. His arm though, was still wrapped under her and around, in a place she actually could admit to being fond of it.

"Good morning, _Jack_." She said with a sly mock.

Without opening his eyes fully, he replied with a sultry grin that made her melt.

"_Vang'line Marley_…"

"I suspect you had everything and nothing to do with this?"

He pried one eye open to inspect their entanglement, then smiled with them closed again.

"Did ye not sleep well?"

She paused with a smirk he missed. "That's not the point."

"Oh…" he teased, pulling her atop his chest quick as his eyes poked open again. "…I think that's precisely th' point, darlin' Eva."

Her face was hovering over his, lips less than a hand's distance apart, and breathing lax. She wanted to kiss him first, then, but didn't know where to begin to not come off as some desperate little child. Jack wanted to start with kissing and work his way up until the crew called for land ahead. He wanted to see and know everything he stupidly tossing overboard.

"Don't kiss me, Jack Sparrow."

"An' why in bloody ell' not?"

"Because."

He rolled his eyes at her answer and flipped her down to the mattress beside him, sitting up on the edge of the bed, his back turned to her. He had no time for ignorant women, only those that were even remotely as serious as he was in return. Not that he wouldn't have taken her anyway, and made her feel what he felt, but he wasn't sure whether that sort of trick would work on someone as tricky as Eva.

"You don't want to kiss me, Jack." She finally spoke behind him, quiet and let down.

"Ye don't think so?"

"I know well enough. I'm not the sort of girl you fancy."

He laughed at this briefly and then stood from the bed to cross over and replace his coat and boots. As he slid each one on his bare feet, he listened to her rustle in the sheets, and turned his eyes up very quickly to see her near the end of the bed, same as the night before. She was looking right at him.

"What would you want with a gypsy pickpocket that…_cuts_ her hair to barter passage on a pirate ship…and who drinks herself to _death_ merely to cover up the thoughts that plague her? That is quite unattractive if you so ask me."

He was standing tall, looking right down into her blinking sapphire eyes when she finished. He wanted to move, but feared falling flat on his face. He wanted to speak, but was afraid he would sound like a fish out of water gasping for imaginary bubbles.

"For how unladylike was the way in which you first saw me?" She scoffed, annoyed at herself. "Pinned to a wall beneath another woman's husband, skirts rolled to reveal my garters to _you_, a stranger."

He smiled at her crookedly, only drawn in more and more as she spoke. Nothing she was saying was turning him away, or making him want to keep dressing. He even began to undress again as her words kept coming so strongly.

"You may be a pirate, but I can only assume that you want a young lady with class. I haven't stitch of that, I promise you."

"Class be damned." He replied and stepped toward the edge of the bed.

"Class is important for a woman."

"An' means very little to a pirate Captain."

Her lips curled into a quick grin, but she went on fighting her case, hardly realizing how close he was getting to her.

"I've seen nor done nothing of esteem. I have the intellect of a housemaid and a combined inheritance no better than that of a tramp dog."

At this, Dill, who lay near the doors of the cabin perked his head up with a slight moan. Jack and Eva both looked at him for a second and laughed, and when she turned her eyes back and his were inches away same as his lips and hands, she took notice finally of how near he truly was to her again.

"I am nothing more than a girl on the run, Jack. What could ever interest you so about that?"

She caught a glimpse of gold between his teeth when he grinned. His eyes were full of something even better than lust or cruelty. They were brooding with passionate attention, to Eva, to all of her, and it consumed her as well. She watched as his hands slowly came to rest on the mattress to each side of her hips, and he lowered his face down even closer, his eyes shifting up and down from the bridge of her nose, to her full lips, then to her brow.

"I've been a man on th' run me 'hole life, Eva. Figure it out…"

While she began to, Jack went on.

"I could leave ye at th' Cove with naught more than a handshake an' tip of me hat..."

"…which would be wise."

He shook his head slightly at her interruption.

"But m' not after wisdom ere', lass."

"Then what are you after?"

No sooner had the question slipped her lips, than Jack had moved in to cover them still in movement. They were softer than he could have dreamt, richer and fuller and sweeter than even his best of fantasies, and he quickly dashed his imagination, embarrassed by how terribly it had done her justice. He brought his mouth in to completely consume all of hers, feeling her hesitate and slightly tremble under him. But when he moved a hand up from the mattress to hold her delicate, velvet like cheek, she eased into his warm lips and everything else surrounding her.

Although Eva made no attempt to touch him, she accepted his mouth long enough to feel his tongue moisten hers, begging for entrance, and she allowed it at free will with parted and desperate lips. When his tongue entered her mouth, she tried to concentrate on breathing and found it had lost all its possibility in the world. There was nothing left but his lips and tongue. That was it.

Jack forced himself upon her a little rougher, but bid himself not to scare her. His hand snaked its way around her waist and lower back as he gently carried her down to rest on the bed again. He fell atop of her, falling between her parted legs same as his tongue drove deeper between her lips, searching out hers and finding it. They fought for control back and forth, something he'd rarely got to experience with a woman in port towns and taverns, and it pleased him to feel the rebellion soldiering in her bones even at a moment like this.

When she felt sure she would die without being able to take a proper breath, Eva pulled her lips from his as his head rose only slightly from her.

"You cheated me into this, you know."

"Aye."

She took a deep breath under his heated gaze.

"You're a true scallywag."

"Aye."

She shook her head and sighed.

"And you're going to kiss me again--"

"Aye."

He cut her off in a flash, with his mouth hot upon hers again. He tasted every bit of her lips and tongue, getting to know just what he'd been missing out on to a bottle of rum and fresh fruit all week long. All this time wasted, when she could have already been his half a dozen times or more. All this time left as an imprisoned acquaintance, when she could have been something entirely different. All this time he spent wondering, and he could have been _knowing_.

If only he had known she tasted this much better than even his best mental encounters. If only he had known the rebel he saw in her on St. Pierre could be so perfectly tuned to his senses. If only he hadn't been so damn proud to touch her until last night.

Her arms wrapped firmly around his neck, weaving through his dreads and ornate locks, pulling him down until his body could come no closer, nor his lips, nor his hands. Eva was going to let him have whatever he wanted, for the last possible time before she left the ship. She was ready to just give into whatever he had boiling over in his head. She was ready when she felt his hand move gently up the leg of her breeches, inching closer to the heat that had consumed her from the inside out, her skin tingling under the cloth pants as his fingers slid tentatively toward her…

"Land ho!"

A rapping on the locked cabin doors startled the both of them, as Eva shifted her gaze to see a shadow through the glass, and Jack forced himself to keep kissing any skin he could find, on her neck, her bared shoulder from his oversized tunic, bits of her chest poking out even.

"Cap'n, Cove 'head! We need ye at th' helm!"

He stopped with nothing he was doing, even though Eva squeezed his shoulders to get his attention.

"Jack…"

He grumbled into her neck, where his lips and teeth nipped tiny circles about her honey skin.

"Jack, they need you now!"

"I need _you_ now…" He mumbled like a helpless child and she laughed.

His head rose from her neck as he hovered over her body again, never unlocking his eyes from hers.

"Don' leave this spot."

She smirked and rose her thumb up at him in a yes response.

"You have my word--"

He cut her off from speaking one last time, as his lips came down to ensnare her little thumb between them. His mouth moved sensually against her finger, with his tongue stroking at the pad of it while she watched his eyes. They were desperate, sensual beyond any eyes she'd ever known, and it only made her body that much warmer. Before he released her thumb to her, he bit the very end gently and kissed it, leaving her breathless at even the simplicity of the action.

Jack was sliding from the bed by the time she caught her right mind again, and was halfway to the door when she jumped down and ran across to barrel against his back. He flew toward the wall and she turned his shoulders as she leaned up to lock his face in her hands. Eva forced her mouth up onto his as she pulled his down to hers, not worried about what he must have thought, and concentrated only on the sensation that his mustache hairs made as they tickled her nose and how his fingers felt when they dug into her lower back. He lifted her from the ground, pressing her body heat to his, and delighting in the fact that she had been the one to initiate round two of this hasty mayhem. That only made this worse for him, to know that she wanted it all the same as he did.

Her lips were hot on his when he heard the men shouting again and made himself stop kissing her. Jack carefully placed her onto the floor, and let his lips very slowly, very ignorantly pull themselves from hers. There was a pout on her face when he moved away to the door, one that made his manhood swell in guilt and demand, and he brushed all the thoughts aside just long enough to take one last look at her and run out of the door, kicking himself the whole time.

* * *

The process of sailing a ship into safe harbor wasn't a long one, especially under Jack's commanding hand on the wheel. Eva could fell every lull and rock the vessel made as the waters grew shallow further into the shores of the Cove, and she watched seated at the window with Dill as the rocky valleys and beaches came into clear view. The ship moved through a slow moving tunnel for what felt like eternity, and then came into a fortress built within the high mountainous walls. It was beautiful, more so than Jack had even told in his storytelling the night before.

She scratched behind Dill's ears with a smile, "It will be nice here. Won't it?"

The dog whimpered a little and let out a short bark toward the cabin doors.

"Yeah…" she replied, thinking about nothing but how empty her lips felt. "…I'm going to miss him too."

While Eva was perched in the window, Jack concluded with giving orders to crew and monitoring the anchoring being weighed into the stony black waters of the Cove's inner port. Sunlight danced across the misty bows of ships toppled high, and a weary feeling entered his gut like it always did about this moment. He tried only to think of getting Eva acquainted with the place, and not worrying about his own timeless battle with it. He wanted her to be happy here, in fact, he needed her to be.

He walked to the bow of his own ship for a short minute, eyeing the surrounding walls and catching the anxious waves of the dozens of children on the banks of the low water. They chased the slow movement of the Pearl as it wound about near the dock of the fort's main entrance, screaming and smiling at Jack. He responded with soft enthusiasm, waves and tips of his hat, but eventually, he found he felt too drained and vacant without Eva's mouth and her hands around him, and he slowly moved away and back toward the cabin.

"Gibbs, shift th' stock, an' get the lot o' them t' the pubs."

His first mate stepped into gear, shouting out with a loud, "Aye Cap'n," and following with orders that drifted over the ship.

Jack snuck away through the cabin doors to see Eva standing at the bed with her back turned. She hadn't even moved at the sound, and instead went on fidgeting with her sack, tossing all of her loose bits of clothes into it. It made him sad to see her packing her things, ready to toss off just as soon as the ship was tied down for safety. He'd grown too fond of coming to his room after the sun and finding her peaceful and woozy in his bed, grumbling through her dreams with smiles.

As he walked quietly in from behind, Jack remembered something deep within his coat pocket and he dug it out. It was the sapphire gem that he had nearly used in barter for supplies, and had rescued only because it had reminded him so much of the gypsy girl with blue eyes. With no more than a foot between the heels of her boots and the toes of his, Jack brought the gem around, dangling from a silver chain he'd had one of his men etch it upon, and lowered it down in front of her eyes until it rested against her chest.

Eva jumped in shock, gasping as she saw the sparkling stone hit the fabric of her borrowed shirt from Jack. Her head tilted down for only a brief second to examine it and stop her packing. She felt the warmth of the only body she'd known all through the night, as he pressed his chest against her rising and falling back. His breath on her neck was smooth and rich, like rum and sun and waves all mixed together.

"Jack, what is this?"

He trailed kisses along the back slope of her neck as he hooked the chain. Every one made her shiver consecutively stronger than the last.

"Tis' but a parting gift, Eva love. Something t' remember me by."

She shook her head with a smile. "As if I will require assistance for that."

This made him happiest to hear, and he suddenly turned her in his arms until he could look down into her, shifting from the oceanic glow of the gem and then back to the eyes that inspired everything in him. His arms wrapped firmly around her waist and he lifted her up to sit on the edge of the bed before him. Eva consciously tugged at his shirt until he fell between her legs, with déjà vu setting in nicely.

"I wish I was a better asset to have aboard. I want so badly to stay now."

Jack understood the struggle she was having, because they shared it.

"Th' Cove will be a good 'venture for ye."

"Yes I know, but I'll miss all _this_ something terrible."

Her eyes moved about the cabin but his remained stationed on her cheeks, and nose, and the tiny freckle that rested just off to the corner of her upper lip.

"Ye don't have t' leave yet, you know."

Eva's face turned back curiously, knowing full well what was in his mind. She had wanted the same thing before he'd darted off to sail the Pearl into port, but something had washed over her while packing. Something that told her she shouldn't give in so easily.

"Indeed, but I should take leave now all the same."

"Why?"

"You have a great deal of work to do before you turn back for open waters again, and I wouldn't want to tear you from stocking the ship."

Eva pushed back on his chest a little so she could slide off the bed.

"I've already been quite fair on your nerves this week past as it is."

He stood helplessly watching her grab at her bags. He didn't want to watch it, but couldn't help it.

"Wot's a half hour more, then?"

"It's a half hour more given, to attach myself to something I needn't attach myself _to_."

Without looking at him, she began making her way to the door with Dill on her boot heels. She couldn't even bring herself to look at him with the statement she'd made, one of hidden truth and unnecessary emotion. She hardly knew him at all, save for his love for the sea and rum and obviously trapped young women. Jack Sparrow was a mystery she hadn't been given the time to solve, and yet still the feelings were rising deep inside of her like an endless flame. Eva could ignore them temporarily with every step she made towards the door of the cabin, but she couldn't deny them completely.

When she heard his voice again, she stopped with her hand on the doorknob.

"Will you at least allow me t' walk you through town?"

The offer was one she'd hoped for and was glad to hear it as she slightly turned her head back with a smile.

"After all…" Jack went on with a smirk as he came behind her at the door, his hand warm on her lower back and breath hot against her ear, "Wouldn't want ye t' lost."

With a gingerly nod, Eva turned the door open and walked out with Jack directly behind her. He stayed close but without touching her the entire way across the ship. She was marked as nothing more than a hostage being freed for departure from the ship. Then men each eyed her suspiciously, some of them even roving over the curves her body made under Jack's clothes, wondering what could have been under different, unprotected felt a little nervous with their glowing stares, but eventually let the queasiness leave her as she stepped down the gangplank to the docks safely. It felt odd to finally, officially be off of the Pearl and on land again, but she knew time would make it less of a noticeable feat.

They walked along the shore and main pathway until the pier and men were out of plain view, and when they were shadowed by the towering and crumbling ship fortress, Jack stepped in closer to Eva's side, gently taking her hand in his. He hadn't been sure he wanted to, but just the sight of her walking along on her way to somewhere else, somewhere he wouldn't be again for some time, made his knees weak and his head swarm. He felt her palm tremble in his hand and he gave it a light squeeze as they strolled through the town in nothing but silent peace.

Many of the pubs and people's faces Jack had described in his stories were coming alive right before her, and Eva was enthralled completely, despite the very sadness of the situation. The walk brought them higher and safer inside the deepest trenches of the fortress, as they weaved through hulls and brigs of all shapes and sizes and age. Candle's dripped along every wall, the floors creaked in notable places, and the greetings of people who obviously knew Jack well, made her that much more comfortable already. This was obviously somewhere that had once been home to him, and that made it special to her all the same.

Eventually they came to two large, freshly polished oak doors at the center of a long hallway, and Jack tugged Eva along and lead her through them. Inside were dozens of women and children alike, scattered from corner to corner, some reading books, others sewing or cooking, children playing games of all kinds too. It was a marvelous sight to behold in such a darkened cavern of a place. Candlelight was all they had to entertain by, and yet the giggling and smiles of every face she saw, was what truly seemed to brighten the room up.

"This is th' main hall."

He leaned down and whispered in Eva's ear, just in time for her to turn her face up with a smile and then for the both of them to be interrupted by a soft, pretty voice. One to match an equally delightful face.

"Oh Jack…" the young woman sighed, placing her hand on his shoulder. "…it's been a might too long this time."

He smiled and released his hand from Eva's, for reasons she pretended didn't exist.

"Sadie."

The woman, at least five years beyond Eva's 21, stood on her toes to reach up and kiss the corner of Jack's mouth. She stood and watched as the two of them reunited, then him and another of the fine women, and another, all the way about the room until he'd been welcomed home and kissed enough times to kill any man so lucky. Eva held her own though, being introduced over two dozen different ways, as a friend, a fellow sailor, a hostage, or a renegade explorer come to train with his father. She admired all of these because they all referred to her time spent in the captain's cabin, in his bed, with _only_ him.

He took walked about to interact and be greeted by the children in the room, and though try as she might, Eva couldn't help but notice how alike some of them looked to him. It frightened her, but she knew whatever the cause of it, she was no part of it. She had only kissed him, nothing more for fate. Her feelings for him were her own, and secret, and impossible to be anywhere near his for her. If he had bred any of the children in this room, in her mind at least, so be it. He wasn't hers, after all.

The minutes continued to pass, until she finally heard Jack speak up and ask for Teague and Elizabeth. To which the reply never came from the women or children, but from the aforementioned woman herself at the opposite archway to the great room.

"Finally returned, have you Jack?"

Eva spun around when he did to see a glowing, golden haired woman looking back at the both of them. It was the one he'd told her all about, Elizabeth, once the pirate King, and now only a pirate mother. She held a young boy to her hip, one with dark hair and eyes, and again Eva found herself contemplating the possibility of it all.

"Lizzie, luv."

His smile was wide and glinting as he wandered through the open space of the room to take her into a firm hug, squeezing the child with a screech of laughter in the process. Eva giggled softly at the action, unconcerned with whatever else it meant, that is until he leaned back and the clues began to slowly arrive.

"An' little Jack. Wot' are they feedin' ye boy?"

Jack ruffled the young boy's hair, a young boy who not only shared his looks but his name. Eva hadn't imagined he could be this way, so fatherly, so compassionate for something other than the sea or women in his bed. It was odd, but right also.

"He looks more an' more like Will every time m'ere. Scary thing, ain't it?"

Elizabeth laughed and caught sight of Eva from over Jack's shoulder.

"Never mind the volume of my child who dreams of being _only you_…" Jack laughed a little as she nodded over his shoulder and continued, "…who is your guest, Jack?"

He turned suddenly, remembering where he'd left Eva and then walked back to take a soft hold of her hand and lead her toward Lizzie.

"This is a woman after yer own eart', Liz."

"Whatever do you mean?" She asked peaceably, with a sweet smile to Eva.

"Found er' impersonating a boy on me ship 'naught of a week ago."

Elizabeth laughed and let her son slide down to the floor. When she stood tall before them again, her eyes were fixed on only Eva, as she grew very quickly attached, without ever having even heard the younger girl's voice.

"Brilliant." With an extended hand she replied, "A masterful trick indeed, Miss…"

Jack and Eva shared a small glanced before she looked back and said quietly, "Eva Marley."

"Eva Marley. Such a lovely name."

A second later, their hands locked together as one. For it was in that moment, when either of them would look back upon it as wild, sporting best friends through the years on, that they knew such would be the way of it. It was the moment in time that Lizzie became nothing short of an older sister to Eva, a fine confidant, and a protector as was Jack's request for this very time.

"I was hoping you'd show Eva bout' the Cove, teach er' what she so desires t' learn."

"And that is?"

"I wish to be a pirate." Eva chimed in with a glow.

Lizzie adored this most and quickly wrapped her arm about the younger woman's shoulder, "It is no wonder then that he leaves you here with me. Jack has never been good at handling women with confidence enough to overthrow him."

The two of them laughed, glancing back at his nervous scowl, and then before Eva could object, Lizzie pulled her along and down the hall.

"I know we're going to have the best of times together while you're here. Two pirate women set to defeat the mass of drunken men on this island."

Eva giggled a little more before she lost all sight of Jack officially. She wasn't sure if he would run off to woo the other women in the room, or if he would simply return to his business at the docks until it was time for him to depart. She only hoped, as Lizzie gave her an elated tour of the Teague house and estate, that he would at very least find her once more before he left.

She wanted to look into his eyes a last time so that she could remember them for her dreams.


	8. Faith and Bittersweet Waves

**

* * *

**

Faith and Bittersweet Waves

* * *

_Stay or leave  
I want you not to go  
But you should  
It was good as good goes  
_

_Stay or leave  
I want you not to go  
But you did_

_What day is this  
besides the day you left me?_

_-_**Stay or Leave **by Dave Matthews Band_-_

* * *

"Wot's er' name boy?"

Jack sat shifting uncomfortably in the chair opposite Teague's massive desk, looking up into the eyes of the man he feared he was growing to be more and more like every day. They shone brightly with the question at hand, as he inquired about the guest his son was leaving behind, same as so many other times.

"Evangeline." He replied with a cough of nervousness and a wave of his hand, "Er' well, Eva."

"Eva. Does _Eva_ ave' a family name?"

"Marley."

Teague's gaze lengthened as his head swarmed with faces and dates and details all at once.

"Marley eh?"

Jack just looked at his father, well aware that something was coming to mind, something he probably didn't even care to know about. And yet the curiosity to know this girl even more burned him.

An' where'd ye find this girl?"

"Well I didn't go lookin' fer er'. She snuck 'board dressed as a boy in St. Pierre."

"Off th' coast o' Martinique."

"Yeah."

Teague's mind still rambled as he slowly stood up and wandered about the open shelves of his study. His leathery, spindle like hands wove over the thick bindings of hundreds of book, his eyes scanning titles and names as Jack watched his with a crooked brow.

"_Evangeline_ is a Greek name."

"Wot's it mean?"

He watched as Teague tore through a large and ancient blue book, sifting pages until he came to a spot he wanted, and then scanned with his ringed index finger down along. He turned to look at Jack when he'd found it.

"Means, _"good message"_ Jacky."

"Good…_message_." He bit his lip and twisted his boots together, confused. "Any idea when this message ought t' arrive?"

Teague chuckled darkly and slipped the book back into place on the shelf, continuing on until he found another he was interested in.

"Marley's, old Irish…"

Jack didn't respond to this, because he knew where it was liable to go if he said anymore. Instead, he waited for Teague to look at him again with a subtle grin.

"Wot's this good message o' yers look like, son?"

Anxious enough as it was, Jack spun out of the chair to stand and walk around, trying to think what the meaning of his coming to Teague's study, with the information about the girl he was leaving, the Irish girl, could turn into. There were things he'd heard since he was a young boy, about dark hair and blue eyes and names like Eva's. There were things he'd seen in his travels, women mostly, that could turn a head without ever turning their own; women of a distraught history, who rose as messengers for the present time.

He'd known all about this for too long, and now, just when he was getting ready to leave her, he had to remember all of it.

In a whisper, as he toyed with a few items on a far table, Jack tried to describe the woman he knew was only rooms away.

"Er' hair is dark, black almost. But she cut it fer er' charade on th' Pearl."

Teague grinned wide and listened closely.

"An' her eyes…" He stopped to smile himself, thinking about the torment he'd gone through just looking at her day to day. "…they're blue; blue like an ocean I've ne'er seen before. I'm tellin' ye, pure sapphires would tarnish beside these eyes."

"Where is she nah?"

Jack's gaze lifted from the candlelight in the corner back to where his father stood near the doorway.

"Tied t' Liz somewhere."

At this the older Sparrow smiled proudly. Lizzie had become like a daughter to him, and even the mention of her very name brought about a glow that was noticeable to Jack most of all. He was glad for his father's happiness with her though, for it was something he could rarely provide him anymore.

"Am I t' be introduced to me new house daughter then?"

Jack tilted his head with a slight nod and walked out of the room, with Teague close on his boot heels, the both of them sauntering down the hall towards Elizabeth's room. They made it there quickly and opened the door to find the two women standing at the high window in the corner, the one designed of green and blue sea glass that looked out over the lower Cove banks. It was a window that Jack's mother had stood at the same way for hours at a time, and it nearly broke his heart to see the two of them there; two more women who had and could potentially ruin him at any moment.

"The sunset is perfect from this spot. The glass makes the entire room sparkle with blue, like the bottom of the ocean."

Eva smiled at this, already tight within Lizzie's arm, like a sister. The attention she'd so missed in her life back at home felt good though, so good in fact that the two of them were completely oblivious to their male company.

"Ahem…" Jack coughed purposefully.

They both spun around in a jolt of laughter, as Lizzie shook her head at Jack teasingly. "Always demanding of attention. Like a child."

"A child after yer own eart' though, right?"

Elizabeth nodded with a smile as she brought Eva closer to center of the room where Teague was. The older man looked at her closely, almost as if he were examining a painting or fine structure of work. But when his bright, also childlike eyes met hers with a spark of light, Eva couldn't help but smile back same as him. She knew who he was right away by the instant resemblance.

"Captain Teague. It's a great pleasure to finally meet you." She tried to curtsy and found she was still wearing Jack's clothes, making it humorously impossible. Elizabeth giggled at her new friend.

"I fancy e' told ye all about me then?"

"Jack told me a few things, yes sir."

Teague's hand went up as he slid in to pat Eva's cheek down below his own height.

"No, no. Formalities are fer th' sea alone. It's Teague, dear. An' yer Evangeline."

She smiled with her cheek still warmly cupped in his fatherly hand. "Eva."

"Eva tis' then. Me new daughter."

The label was surprising, but still, it felt good immediately.

"Ave' to replace me son with as many beautiful young women as I can."

Jack rolled his eyes when Teague pounded his free hand on his shoulder. His eyes darted directly to Eva's, catching the oceanic light he felt he needed, the one that contained him. She smirked at him sweetly and then turned back to the conversation growing between Teague and Elizabeth. They discussed the house with her for a few more minutes then they both showed her to her room. It was the one adjacent to Jack's old room, which in her heart, made her feel safe, even knowing that he wouldn't be there at all.

She could tell, even Jack liked the idea of it. Though he didn't say anything.

It was at least another hour or more before Teague left the group for his quiet study again, and Lizzie left Jack and Eva alone in the great hall, which was now empty, to peruse through the kitchen over cooking something. The sun was slowly drifting off the high fort's mountainous walls from the large window view, and while Eva stood examining her new place of lodging, her new _home_, Jack leaned on the frame of the doorway that lead to the slope of the island, watching her steadily. She appeared in her element here, same as she had somewhat in St. Pierre, and even more on the Pearl. Eva seemed to attach herself easily to a place, although according to her, other than visits back and forth from France to Martinique to Ireland as a child, this was the first time she'd truly been away from home.

She let her soft hands, the ones he knew were soft from already terribly missed experience, run over tables, and curtains, candlesticks and antique trinkets strung throughout the room. Everything she touched, he was jealous to admit he wanted to be; whether it was a chair back or a vase.

Eventually, when she'd gotten a clear feel for the place, she found Jack again in the center of the long room, and smiled up at him.

"It's peaceful here. You didn't tell me that."

He grinned from the corner of his mouth. "Just ye wait," he replied, leaning in to wrap his strong arm around her shoulder and lead her through the back doorway, "An assembly o' squabbling drunks by week's end will change that."

With a slight giggle, she found herself growing weak just from the scent of him around her again, finally. It had only been hours, but hours far too long. Eva was beginning to realize the power Jack had over her, and how every second that neared closer to him turning for the Pearl and sailing away, she was growing fainter, more feeble to her mind's needs.

He walked her out into the high grass of a low dropping hill that came down from the back of the Sparrow residence and main fort. Small wildflowers of pink and blue sprouted here and there as they trampled across the ground towards where Eva could just make out the glow of moving water on a few thick tree trunks. As they neared, it became a creek, one that wound about the entire back property and then disappeared into the ocean that surrounded the Cove safely.

As they approached the black, streaming water, Jack removed his arm from around Eva's shoulder and instead found her hand and pulled her along to the bank. Her fingers trembled in the heat of his hand, cooled only by the silver and gold of his numerous rings. It was a sensation she hadn't expected, nor the one a moment later when he carefully eased her against a tree back, his eyes hovering over hers same as his mouth and hands at her side.

"What on earth are you doing, Jack?"

"Don' ask me that."

With the snap she grew solemn under his body, flicking her eyes away to the horizon behind his shoulder instead, trying to ignore whatever was going on with him. She didn't want the burden of it when he finally turned away and left. They were silent for a moment more, before she felt his fingers lift the blue stone from her chest and play with it as his breath warmed her cheeks and nose.

She eventually looked back up into his eyes.

"Tell me you'll like it ere', at the Cove. Ease me mind bout' it."

"I _do_ like it, already."

"Swear it."

"I swear. What is this about? Why are you so concerned about leaving a captive behind?"

He shook his head as he twisted the gem and settled it to her warm skin again.

"If ye were just a captive, I wouldn't be ere' with ye like this now. I'd be halfway t' China, love."

Eva smiled at this knowingly, appreciatively even as she reached up to play with the tiny beads on his dingles.

"Then what am I, if not an abandoned hostage of yours?"

He said nothing and only looked straight at her, searching out some answer in her eyes that never came.

"You don't have a response for that. For good and safe reasons I imagine."

"Ye confuse me, worse than I've e'er been." Jack leaned down toward her face closer, his hands gripping the thick tree bark to the side of her head. He laughed as his words left warmth on her own lips, "Damn you, Eva Marley. You gypsy enchantress…"

She too laughed. "I've done nothing."

"Precisely where th' confusion lies."

"So then, perhaps your leaving me here is a good thing."

His eyes grew wide and suddenly fearful at her words.

"_Perhaps_…if my presence rots at your brain in such a way, going back to sea without me is the wisest decision of any man, of any _pirate_." She tilted her face down to hold back her own emotion and then whispered in final, "And it will no doubt leave you with a handsomer ration of rum throughout the week."

At this he grinned down at her with a sparkle of gold from between his lips and teeth, and then without fully knowing what he was doing, he only followed instinct and came down to press his mouth warmly against hers. Her lips were like nothing he'd ever known, on any coast, in any pub or tavern or inn across the seven seas he'd mapped so well. She tasted like the ocean that gave him the freedom he loved, and that scared him. She tasted like a crisp wind in taut sails, like a fresh mop of an oak churned deck, like the saltiest wave on the sandiest beach. All the things that killed him to have known so well, she was consuming of.

He held her face roughly as he pushed himself into her fragile form against the tree, harder, letting his tongue only enter the heated cavern of her mouth when he felt she was ready to fight for control, and she did. Her hands through his weaving mess of hair pulled his lips and wet tongue closer into hers, as she forced her path into his mouth first, taking over in ways he rarely allowed a woman to so easily. Normally charge would be required, or pleads of a sort, but with Eva, the control she desired same as him was fair, it was naturally just and anything else would be felony.

When finally they stopped for a breath, Jack lingered in a hover over her as Eva's lips clung wet and pouty to his.

"Would it be criminal to make request, that I might do nothing but sit and kiss you until the end of time?"

He smiled at her confession and gently pressed his lips into hers again, holding the back of her head safely, his fingers dancing through the short, soft curls of her hair. Jack didn't want to admit what was coming over him the longer he hung about in her midst, the longer he took to return to the Pearl and break waves. He didn't want to admit that she had the power he knew she had over him, or that in many ways, he could agree with her statement in the respect that he could be so easily satisfied with only her lips until death became him.

When he pulled away from her, she still held on tight, her hands on his chest and tugging at his shirt ties. The more the sun fell on the island, the more brooding and desperate her eyes became, and it scared his senses to imagine what would fill him within moments if he weren't able to steady himself enough to get away. He had wanted to have her on the Pearl in the early morning, but had been glad still when it had been interrupted. For her lips alone were killing his spirit by the second, and he was deathly afraid of what her thighs could double in him.

"You'll come back one day, won't you?"

She asked this so innocently, like a lonely child, as she toyed with his shirt.

"I will."

Eva looked up at him, confident in the promise, but saddened by the lack of date or time period to expect the return. This she knew would haunt her until he saw fit to make good on his word.

"And you'll bring new stories to tell me?"

"Without doubt."

This excited her as she stood to fix her ruffled clothes and steady her boots on the grass again. Jack watched her, pining for mere seconds left with her, and that skin, and those lips and eyes that had him undone tenfold. When she stirred to hold his gaze tightly again, it was a simple, necessary smile that crossed her mouth, and one he would admit for many months to come, that he despised. It was a smile that revealed defeat, and to witness it upon Eva's face and spirit of all persons, broke even a part of him.

"I guess this is goodbye then, Jack."

"No Eva," he replied as he came in to brush his cheek against hers roughly, a whisper on her ear and neck, "It's merely a 'see ye soon.' For I will, see ye _soon_."

"Soon." She murmured quietly back to him, drowning in his heat.

"I left a second parting gift in yer room."

Eva smiled but shook her head at him when he leaned back and brushed his palm down her cheek.

"I suppose then, I'll have to thank you for it upon your return. Whenever that be."

The wicked glow returned to her eyes just in time for him to nod, place a single kiss on each of her cheeks, a deep one down upon her lips, and then turn with a tip of his hat toward the docks.

"I'll miss you, Jack!" She shouted out as she ran halfway after him down the beach.

He spun back with a wide, gleaming smile and replied defiantly. "None so much as me, darlin'."

In a quick flurry of what felt like the worst heartache and the grandest joy Eva had ever known, Jack made way to the Pearl. She watched him shout orders out from a distance for a while, but eventually the scene became too much for her to bear, and she found her way back to his father's house to rest her mind and eyes of the departure.

And while everyone else in town took to the purple coast with waves and shouts of lucky endearment, Eva remained inside of the small parlor of Teague's home, listening to it all and never turning to draw back the silk curtains of the window. She refused to give herself the satisfaction of remembering his ship on the horizon as her last sight of that day. She just wanted to remember _him_.


	9. One Particular Harbor

**

* * *

**

One Particular Harbor

* * *

_Where no one will ask  
'Cause nobody knows  
You're not in my life anymore.  
No one can tell the salt water from my tears  
No the pull of the tide or the crash of the waves  
Ain't gonna wash your memory away_

_Mixed me a drink now I  
Sit on the bow and I'm  
Watchin' the sun just like  
You disappear.  
If I'm gonna be down  
I'd rather be down, way down here._

-**Way Down Here** by Kenny Chesney-

* * *

**Shipwreck Cove – **_**Half Moon Lagoon**_** – May, 1767**

* * *

_As a young child, Grace O'Malley yearned to join her father on the sea, but her mother resisted, saying the life of a sailor was not for young ladies. When Grace cut off her long hair in protest, her amused family nicknamed her Grainne Mhaol (Grace the Bald). It is believed her father gave in and allowed her to travel with him to Spain._

Eva sat at the green water's edge, trailing over specifics in the book that for two long months had left her the most comfort of anything. The pages were crisp with age and travel and smelled of rum and the sea, same as Jack's cabin always had to her. She smiled, looking out across the smooth lagoon, private to the eye due to the deathly hike it took her to get to it. Elizabeth had urged her though after seeing how close she had stayed to the house and town, prying through any open window for the whole of two weeks, just waiting for black sails on the ever-blue horizon.

And it was on this day, whilst she sat curled in the window of her room, that Elizabeth decided it was time for Eva to discover what else the world had to offer besides the Black Pearl and its captain that she rarely _didn't_ talk about.

"_Dear Eva, the view will not change no matter how hard you sit wishing for it. Jack will come back, when only Jack Sparrow sees fit, trust me this."_

_Eva turned away and let the curtain fall back on the shadowy blue room. _

"_You're right, it's foolish to want him back anyway."_

"_It's not, he's charming company. But…" Elizabeth grinned widely and drew out a small folded piece of parchment paper, placing it on Eva's lap. "…there are other things just as charming on this island as his scent. Why not go out on an adventure of your own?"_

_She looked down at the well drawn map, obviously done by Elizabeth's own hand in the course of the passing morning, and then she caught her friend and new sister's eye with a smile. _

"_Half Moon Lagoon?"_

"_Take your book, I've packed a satchel with food and canteen for you, and let yourself be a wanderer for the afternoon. Be like Jack instead of just waiting for him to return with all the fine tales…"_

Elizabeth's words had resounded something fierce in her again, something that hadn't been there since the very tip of March's days. For too long she had sat wondering and thinking about a man who was probably busy fighting off French soldiers or barreling through an eastern hurricane. Eva needed to find her own way, never having thought that Elizabeth's little journey for her, would turn into an entire alteration in lifestyle and dreams.

She spent the whole of the day fighting off demonic creatures of the islands mountainous jungles, nearly drowning herself twice in the lagoon's deep waters to save the book Jack had gifted her, and only now lay reeling in the sun and golden sand, skimming the pages that gave her every hope for a future like the one she was abandoned from.

_When Turkish pirates attacked her ship, it looked as though they would be defeated. Grace screamed out, "May you be seven times worse this day twelve months, who cannot do without me for one day!" She went on deck, waving a blunderbuss, and said, "Take this from unconsecrated hands!" O'Malley's crew captured the Turkish ship, dispatched the crew and added to their fleet. _

"For your sake Jack, I hope this book wasn't intended as merely entertainment." Eva laughed, glancing over black and white sketches of the Clare Island Fort and the Turkish ship Grace had taken so diligently. She was amazed by it all, and continued her quiet elegy to a man who rested only in her head. "For it was just such a gift…you are going to be highly disappointed should you ever show face on this island again."

With a quick twist of the blue necklace he had placed on her neck, same as she often did when strong thoughts of him arrived; Eva rose from the sand, tore her small chemise off, and dove head first into the lemony green waters of the lagoon. As the silk like water covered her warm skin, she swore she could feel him all around her, as if he'd touched this place before, or as if the lagoon's pool had been formed by waves he had trekked through the long nights himself. Jack was here, always, devastating her mind.

Trying to wash him away was no better an idea that bathing directly with him. And even the thought of that, left her body tingling for days.

* * *

**"_I've heard you're a legend at many things, Jack…" he sighed, standing at the edge of a crystallized shore, breathing in the scent of wild Jasmine and rum. Only one person held that aroma in his mind. "…I wonder if the legend well precedes the marvel hidden beneath these dirtied clothes…"_**

_**He felt his wrinkled tunic being slowly lifted away from his chest and back, as feathery tips of cool fingers met his burning skin, grazing over muscles and scars. With a wicked grin, he sucked in a deep breath. The shirt was completely forced off his dreads and thrown to the sand in front of him. **_

**"_How many times have you been marked in this life, Jack?"_**

_**The voice and hands continued roaming his back and arms, as they came around to the front of him, touching the soft bullet wounds on over his heat. **_

**"_Too many times, love." He replied hastily, pulling the chin of the woman up, just so he could match her eyes with the far ocean spread behind her. _**

_**She smiled up at him and nodded with a whisper, "And has the pain been great?"**_

**"_Unbearable at times." He answered back huskily, trying to bring her mouth closer to his, but she held back with more inquiry, barely letting her lips brush his._**

**"_Have you met pure bliss in the world yet?"_**

_**He shook his head with a murmur of a 'no', still inching his body to hers. **_

**"_What would you give for it?"_**

**"_An'thing."_**

_**She grinned proudly at the answer and quickly began tugging at the ties of his pants. Together they moved even closer to the water, their feet disappearing in the aqua surf and their ankles stirring small bubbles. **_

**"_Do you want me, Jack?"_**

_**He nodded ferociously as he pulled at the small buttons and lace ties of her dress. Her hair was long and wild again, dark as it covered his eyes from the sun and he breathed in the spiced sweetness of her neck. **_

**"_For how long do you want me?"_**

_**Jack ripped away the dress completely as they moved into the ocean. His arms lifted her tiny form up from the water as her smooth, bare legs wrapped around him and her arms the same through his hair. Her salted lips melted against his, as the hard flesh of his lower body became trapped in her legs and he whispered back to her. **_

**"_Forever. I want ye forever, Vang'line Marley." _**

_**They fell down into the downy water as their bodies finally collided, each of the gasping out for the other. **_

**"_Eva…Eva…"_**

"Eva…God, me _Eva_…"

Jack's head pushed down into the pillow, his breath coming short from panting out her name and rubbing the sensitive flesh locked within his frustrating breeches. He stroked hard to relieve himself of the eyes and legs and lips he felt consuming him, pulling him down into the waves of the bliss she had promised. He shouted out her name one last time into the linen pillowcase, and then suddenly opened his eyes as a rush covered him below.

When he did though, he felt movement next to him under the sheets and slowly turned to see a bare form moving around through his starry vision. There was a scowl, a beautiful one, but a scowl still as a woman looked down upon him from what looked like heaven, the way the white glow surrounding him still. An angry whisper above him brought him spiraling back down to what must have been earth.

"_My name _is Angeline."

He half expected a harsh hand across his face, but instead was left bare and cold when the chestnut haired Greek goddess tugged away the only sheet covering him, grabbed her clothes and tore open the door of the inn room. She slammed it as was routine for women of her nature.

Jack sighed and threw his head back to the pillows, still consumed in a dark sweat and thoughts that he hadn't realized could plague him so well. It had been two months only since he'd sailed away and left his blue-eyed little imposter behind. And she wasn't Angeline, or Scarlett, or Margarita.

She was _Evangeline_. His mind's finest chaos.

* * *

**Chennai Port, India – October, 1768**

* * *

"Three pound. I've made th' offer a half dozen times, mate."

"Yes, yes…he understands."

Jack stood in the corner of a rowdy market, haggling away with merchants far sneakier than he could even dream to be. His longtime translator, a short, wily man named Pravin, stood beside him with a booming conjecture for the dirtier looking man behind the table. The two Indian men argued for what felt like a lifetime, and Jack even began contemplating finding what he needed elsewhere, until his friend turned back to him again.

"He says three pound is good, but four would be better."

"Oh I don't doubt it."

He crossed his eyes angrily between the two of them for a moment, scanning over the items in question across the table. He picked out silks beyond comparison to any others in the port, as well as a handcrafted sword, iron and gold filigree bound, with only the finest of details laid into the blade. It was worth a great amount, he just wasn't sure four pound was the amount he was thinking.

"Gambhir says that he will give to you also these chickens for your journey."

Jack glanced over the table to see three crates of scrawny, sickly looking chickens and knew as better as any other time that he was being swindled by the man. It was entertaining sport though, and he sighed deeply in agreement.

"Fine, yes. Let it be done with already, man."

"Good, good Captain Sparrow."

The merchant shouted a bunch of spitting babble at him, and with a twist of his brow in annoyance, he led the way back to the ship while his men and Pravin carried the chickens and silks. The sword he sheathed neatly and carried with great pride, not wanting it to fall into the wrong hands, especially in the middle of this lie infested marketplace. It would be sold for a diseased goat within seconds.

He'd been here two days too long as it was, and needed the refuge of open waters again. The Company had been closing in upon the port and the chances were too narrow for him to stay, even if he had wanted to.

After showing the men a place to leave the silks in his cabin, he gave Gibbs command to ready the ship for leave, and then returned inside of the room, locking the door behind him. It was quiet and peaceful at last, for a change. He could only hear whispers of voices on the deck and shoreline, gouging prices and calling men to duty of weighing anchor. The cabin was faintly lit by the light of day's pink end and a few misplaced candles in the windows behind his desk.

Jack though sunk into his bed, laying the newly purchased sword to his side in the empty sheets. He counted with his eyes closed, the months that had come and gone, wondering how it could have been so long as for him to have missed two springs completely.

"_April, May, June…." _His brain shuffled over the time, stopping when he came to present. "_...September, October. _October."

He sat up against the mass of pillows, shocked by even his own ignorance for once.

"Nineteen months. It's absurdity."

He thought of what two April's past had left him without. She had stood on the beach watching after him as he went, wearing his clothes, scented by his final plea for goodbye, and yet he walked on. The memory of Evangeline Marley was a crude one, a disturbing nightmare that came and went with every passing port or storm or merchant ship he'd taken over. She was there always, teasing him with imaginary smile and kisses, and even now, his head wavered between the thought of what she looked like when he last saw her and what time could have possibly mastered to do and better her.

Which he knew was impossible. She could not be bettered from cruel perfection.

"_I'll miss you, Jack!"_

The plague went on as he stood and wandered for a bottle of rum on his chart. He ignored the damp ring it left across the starry Florida keys, and lifted it to his lips, downing at least half before lowering it again and chuckling. He wondered if her affluence for alcohol had altered, or increased, or worsened until she had drank herself into the same state as the rest of the islanders at Shipwreck. He tried to picture her grown to a point beyond the late twenty years she had claimed when he left her, and how she would look nineteen months in addition.

She was merely a girl in his eyes, at his age. But had it stopped him? Certainly not. Twenty to a nearly doubled number meant very little to anything or anyone. Eva had taken to his childlike spirit same as most other women, and Jack had taken to her maturity like most married men had from St. Pierre.

"_You'll come back one day, won't you?"_

"_I will."_

"_And you'll bring new stories to tell me?"_

"_Without doubt."_

Both promises he kept close to his heart still, as he remembered each of them so indifferently. The stories would be the easy part, there were hundreds of them since he'd parted from her. There were stories of Cherokees off the South Carolina coast, Spanish mermaids in the Cantabrian Sea, and even his rescuing run-in with a golden eyed Duchess on the Tuscan shoreline. He had stories that would last Eva the rest of her days.

But his initial promise of returning, which would lead to the storytelling itself, was a harder thing for him to come to the notion of attempting. It was an inner battle, admitting he wanted it and needed it the same way he knew she must. Part of him hoped she had forgotten his name and face, but knew it would be a near impossible feat if she were still residing with his father and Lizzie. In fact if that were the case, he was even more frightened by the return. To know she might have remained this long, nineteen months without moving on or running on her rebel path, and instead could have found any sort of peace in the room just beside his. This made a spark fly up his back and he jumped into a step as he took a seat at his desk.

"Damn er' for being so…" he couldn't finish, for he wasn't sure what he meant to detail her as.

Instead he glanced over to see his compass' dial spinning wildly inside of its shell, flipping from the door to the windows to the bed and then even to him. He rolled his eyes and moved to close the lid, until he noticed it stop very slowly and settle just south of where he was seated.

"South…_southeast_…" he questioned it for a short moment, before in his calculating mind he realized what was southeast of his chair and his desk.

"No." He stated flatly, tossing the compass to the floor harshly as he fell back in his chair. "No…no, no."

The bottle hit his lips again as he finished it off desperately. But when it was gone and the bottle fell to the wood floor beside his demonic crystal ball, the answer to all his troubles, he could only sigh loudly.

"It's merely a 'see ye soon'."

He chuckled and shook his head, accepting what he'd sworn to her only that much more.

"I deem I'll be seein' ye _soon _then, Miss Marley."


	10. Girl Sailor

**

* * *

**

Girl Sailor

* * *

_Girl, if you're a seascape  
I'm a listing boat, for the  
Thing carries every hope._

_Of all the intersecting lines in the sand  
I routed a labyrinth to your lap  
and never used a map sliding off the land._

_You belong to a simpler time  
I'm a victim to the  
Impact of these words,  
And this rhyme._

-**Sea Legs** by the Shins-

* * *

It was like returning to the center of the universe, or the beginning of life as he knew it. Jack had been dead for almost two years, roaming without a point and pillaging with only half the severity and determination that he had come to be known for. He had taken a swift nineteen months on the open sea and turned them into nothing more than a stream of relaxation and thoughtful rest for his crew, and especially for himself.

In fact, had it not been for the trunks of jewels they had discovered in discard at the bottom of a reef in Ambergris Cay near the Mexican coast, they would have returned empty handed, drunk and ready for good company to ease the pain of it. Luck had been on their side though, and even more than luck in Jack's own case, pure coincidence and fate.

They inched through the darkness of the Devil's Throat tunnel, coming to the light of the center fortress minutes between soft conversation and arguments about women and workload. There had been no time for stopping and indulging their hungry appetites since Mumbai, and Jack feared the worst was to come to the women of his home on this evening.

When they made it into the clearing of the Cove's deeper and brighter waters, he focused on bringing the ship about in a low hide towards the back of town, rather than pulling it alongside of his father private dock this visit. He wanted the surprise return to at least have a chance of missing certain ears for the time being, until he could get his bearings enough to figure out what he was going to do or say to her when he saw her.

"Ow' long are we staying fer this time, Jack?"

Gibbs' resounding voice from behind him brought a turn until he could face the older man.

"Not sure, mate. But we'll restock in the mornin' all th' same."

"Aye. An' the crew?"

"Free run o' the town until I send word ov'erwise."

His friend nodded with a wide smile, one Jack knew meant Gibbs himself would so take advantage of the stop in Shipwreck. He had his regulars here, same as the both of them did in most ports, and he had to respect the old man for it.

A few minutes he remained on deck, shouting out specifics of the anchoring and ship watch, while he worked on drawing up a topsail on his own, and then eventually disappeared back into his cabin to round up a few items. His heart beat like a drum, pressing against the boned cage of his chest until he had to stomp his boot heels on the floor just to ignore the sound. His hands moved faster than they had in a year or more, working to stuff a satchel of trinkets and treasures for the children along his walk to Teague's place, as well as the items in question for his father and the harem of women that he prided in.

He finished by throwing on his coat against the chilly November wind that blew outside of the door and setting his effects in proper place. Then with a skip out of the cabin, a waltz across the deck, down the plank and into the creaking pathways of the town, Jack began his short journey with a shouting, excited group of followers in tow.

Most of them were children, who clawed on his coat and sash, searching out gems and anything of worth as they usually did upon one of his return visits. Jack showered them with small Indian toys and sparkling pebbles from the Grecian markets until his jaw grew tired from smiling at their insistence. A few women walked along with him, throwing all kinds of questions about, inquiring as to where he planned to drink come nightfall and whether he was in the mood for a blonde, a red head, or a dark haired young lady. He only laughed and refuted the answer he could have so easily given.

His mind was too focused elsewhere.

"Business t' discuss t'night ladies. My utmost apologies."

He stroked a cheek or two as they kissed him one by one near the end of his walk, and turned back into their separate holes of the town, like scurrying mice. The children followed him only a while longer until they found something more interesting down at the beach and he was alone in his conclusion at the Sparrow doorstep.

He didn't knock or announce his arrival, but twisted back the doorknob and fell inside to the noisy, brightly lit home. He could hear voices all throughout the walls, of the many women his father took under his wing, and the dozens of children born of these beauties. Some of them ran about to greet and hug him, while others shook their heads from their sewing or painting chairs.

He saw no sign of Lizzie or Eva among any of them, and deliberated the other places the two of them could possibly be. Often times over the years he would come to find Elizabeth seated in her room reading, or in one of the many abandoned dinghies on the black shoreline, napping inside peacefully. It appeared indifferent on this day though, as she was in neither of these common places. He went to Teague's study but found it empty as well.

It wasn't until he walked back down to where he had seen the children running to the beach, that he noticed the golden, even longer curls of Lizzie's hair as they covered the back of her dress, and his own father, the frightening image of what he knew of himself to be from behind, standing in the low water's edge.

He approached them slowly but with little accomplishment as the children screamed his name.

"See, there e' is!"

"We told you!"

"It's Captain Jack!"

Elizabeth and Teague turned with assuming grins and shakes of their heads. Jack came in closer, stumbling in the yellow sand with a high, mocking nod.

"Have you no bravery left in your gut to dock here, Jack? We don't _bite_, at least very hard."

He smiled at Lizzie, accepting her half motherly tone as something fair and beautiful, and then slid in to lift her bare feet from the ground in a swarming hug. He could hear his father chuckle low beside them as he swung her around and the children shouted in laughter.

"Will you put me down?! You're quite ridiculous!"

He dropped her down softly until she was short beneath him again, patting his chest fiercely with a giggle.

"It's good t' see ye too, Madam Turner."

"Don't you dare…" she threatened with a teasing finger "…I am of no age to carry that title and you well know it."

"Indeed, but _strumpet_ hardly suits ye anymore."

She gasped and hit his shoulder hard, when Teague stepped.

"Blood brothers an' sisters would envy th' care ye show for one another."

Laughing, Jack officially greeted his father with a shake of the hand and pat on the back. Anything more never had really suited the pair, although they seemed to get along better as the years digressed and each of their minds aged into forgetfulness of their differences.

"Still walking old man?"

"The day I don't is th' day Lizzie takes o'er. So hold th' warning fer your livelihood, Jacky."

He flashed a glinting smirk at Elizabeth who did the same in return and then knelt to play with the small children. Jack stayed patient a few moments longer as Teague spoke of a few different things concerning his visit and the placement of the Pearl. He waited until he knew it wouldn't seem suspicious to question the missing body amid them, and when he found a less than awkward moment, he snatched at it.

"Last I remember you had another surrogate offspring. Dare I ask wot' made you apparently banish er'?"

Teague smiled, recognizing the glow in his son's eyes that Jack thought he had hidden. The old man turned towards the open and far off archway of the Devil's Throat tunnel when he spoke.

"I s'pose ye take meaning in my dear Eva."

He was stricken by the way his father had come to speak of her, _his dear Eva_, same as he had forever since now referred to Elizabeth as, _his dear Lizzie_. He took it as a sign of what he'd missed over the passing of the long months and only examined the tunnel himself.

"So she's made her mark in yer eart' enough t' earn her keep then?"

"Surprised by that, boy?"

"Not in th' least. I saw er' potential, hence why she ended up ere' and not back home."

"This is her home now in many ways, Jack." He thrust his face back to see Lizzie walking up to them again, and eased himself with a whisper of a sigh when she placed her hand on his taut shoulder, smoothing out the stress knots lovingly. "She's taken so well here. It might shock you."

"Oh I think 'twill do more than that, Liz." Teague responded over his shoulder, making Jack just that much more nervous when he replied.

"I hope the two of ye aren't challenging me health."

"Not yer elth' boy."

"Wot' then?"

Elizabeth laughed as she saw the front end of a ship's bow tilt inwardly to the town from the dark tunnel.

"If we told you, you wouldn't believe it. So see for yourself, Captain Sparrow."

She pointed the direction out as he followed her slender finger to the tunnel's distant, incoming glow. A ship was approaching from within it, not a big one by the looks of it, but something sizeable enough to count. He focused on the lines and sheen of oak from which it was carved, the yellowing sails from age and the Jolly Roger that flew from the midway point of the mast. It bore a hand stitched emblem of a skull and crossbones, matched perfectly with a faint blue star.

He shook his head in _shock_, indeed shock. For what else could he shake his head in but that?

"Ye've got t' be joking…" he stepped down the beach a ways as the ship came nearer to the Sparrow docks. He could hear Teague and Lizzie laughing at him, but he didn't much care. To himself alone, he whispered at the waving blue star, "_Van'geline Marley, ye bloody rogue."_

He was fixed upon her ability to steer the ship into port perfectly, with ease of swiveling as he could just make out her hands sliding against the spokes of the wheel. She stood high on the upper deck, barefoot from the looks of it, wearing nothing more than finer rags fashioned into some kind of a slip dress, and nothing that covered much of anything. Her hair, one of the first things that came to his attention, whipped against her shoulders and face, long, longer than he even remembered it from St. Pierre, and tumbling in loose, dark curls under a purple bandana. The wind on her skin and lips and through her hair took the place of where he wished his fingers could be, teasing him as the ship slowed in the dull waters.

"I dare you to find words now, Jack."

Lizzie teased him with her arms wrapped tight around one of his as they stood together. Teague moved past them to assist with anchoring the ship again, and it wasn't until this began to take place before his eyes, that Jack realized where he knew the wonderful schooner from.

"That's th' _Harlot_, she's rigged."

Elizabeth grinned wide up at him, "Your father thought it deserved a second chance."

"Aye. Its second chance looks better an' it's first."

Together they crooned a little and wandered down the beach, arm in arm as they studied the last of the duties to secure the ship that had very first been sailed under Jack's hands too many years past. Eva had a crew of which could not be seen until they had risen on the hill enough. This, being from their imbalance in height, most of them between the ages of five and ten, and no more matured than any of the men Jack himself sailed with, which made him laugh inwardly as he greeted the children with Lizzie.

"Little Jack is her first mate if you can believe it."

"Ha, couldn't ave' expected less..." He chuckled as his now five year old protégé ran from the docks and across the grass, shouting out his name.

"Uncle Jack!"

He had grown double what he was in size and age, and ran towards Jack's legs as he pummeled him. With a tilt, and another rush of children's hands, he felt himself fall backward to the open ground, completely covered in jumping, screeching Cove progeny. Elizabeth offered her his hand once or twice, but it did very little since she couldn't stop laughing at the innocence she saw in Jack's concerned eyes from the dirt up.

In fact it was someone distant from the scene itself who rescued him without words or offerings of hands. The children ran back with shouts after Eva when they saw her finish and come safely to the dock. They jumped up and down, hugging her legs and tugging at her arms with gratitude of the sailing venture. And all of this intrigued Jack as he crawled back to his feet.

The closer she got, the more he felt himself die inside. She was too much, in this light of day, with her bared skin glowing like only the finest sands of Shipwreck could, her dark hair blowing with the wind's pace, and her bare feet dirtied without much care at all. There was rebellion scattered all over her form, from head to final toe, despite her domestic binding to the Sparrow household. She had retained resistance against what he was afraid she would fall into, at least from the view he held.

It was a moment later that he felt a pinch through his loose shirt and winced with a glare down at Liz.

"Go talk to her." She smiled, pinched him once more with a shove in the right direction and then disappeared into the house with Teague and little Jack.

He fixed his gaze well upon her as he noted the way she handled the few lingering young girls who talked with her at half the height. He couldn't make out clear statements, only shouts, giggles, excitement and more hugs before the lace and silk clad little girls darted onto the lead path to town again.

It was only then, when she stood at the end of the docks as alone as he on the hill, that the two of them locked eyes for the first time in nineteen months and too many days to think or want to count. He felt the heat of a thousand lonely nights when she stared at him that way, as if the world were closing in around them and she only wanted to cling to him forever, same as he to her. The power of it, only doubled for reunited purposes now, overtook him in a sweep and together, after a clear moment of hesitation, they each stepped toward the other to close in the distance with smiles.

Eva was taken with his presence, the greatness and beauty of a man, something she'd never known, something she knew she would never see again after Jack. He'd returned, suddenly and without warning, and she loved him for it in one clear, quick moment as she felt her bare feet arch against the last plank of the dock, ready to make a bolting run into his strong arms.

And she would have, with Jack as ready to spread his arms wide and then enclose them about her tiny, half dressed mold until he could find a bed to lay her upon. It all would have happened perfectly, had it not been for the ignorant blockade that came between them in an instant, reducing his view of her to nothing but mere toes and darting eyes over broad shoulders. A man stood between them, a third, unwarranted party, and he felt ready to draw his pistol for the first time in too long.

He watched the young yellow haired man, dressed for the King's business alone, stroked back on Eva's wispy curls as they blew in her face and rubbed her shoulders, as if he had some instantaneous right to do it. Jack's fingers held firm to the handle of his gun as he inched once closer, trying to hear the conversation, but failing. It was all mumbling romanticism from what he could tell, by the bruised, worried look on Eva's face as she glanced over the tall man's shoulder to catch Jack's heated stare.

He felt a little better by her efforts, but they only lasted so long, before he watched the man tear her away from the docks and walk with his arm around her in care, guiding her through town and out of sight. Before he could though, he watched Eva's smile widen when they neared a turning corner, and she mouthed very clearly from his sight, _"Welcome home."_

He smiled back, but could do little more. He had only to find out details until she returned to the house.


	11. The Likes of You

**

* * *

**

The Likes of You

* * *

_The shells crack under our shoes  
Like punctuation points  
the planets bend between us,  
And a hundred million suns and stars._

The sea filled in this silence  
before you said those words.  
And now even in the darkness  
I can see how happy you are.

-**The Planets Bend between Us** by Snow Patrol-

* * *

Hours had dwindled like wildfire, burning his fingers with the desire to trample through town on a quest to pull her from the grasp of whoever had so placed his claim on her since he'd been gone. He sat in the kitchen with Elizabeth and little Jack; peeling at all kinds of beans and rice, aimlessly letting his mind and eye wander about the room.

It wasn't until Elizabeth had watched him rip angrily at what must have been the hundredth basil leaf that she moved her hand across to steady his hand on the table.

"Jack."

He looked up at her, realizing what he'd been doing to all of her herbs.

"Oh, sorry."

She understood what he had seen and why it must have been rotting his mind away just thinking about it, for Elizabeth had all of the information of the household, she knew the rumors and the secrets, even those that hadn't been told to her. She could see what had bothered not only Jack all afternoon, but Eva for nearly two years.

"Never would have expected to find you so beaten to death with jealousy."

She smirked and went back to stirring a bowl of rice, as little Jack sat dropping each of the leaves his Uncle Jack had torn apart into her mixing.

"Ye always were an imaginative woman, Liz."

"Are you telling me I don't see what's before me at this table?"

He just looked at her with a tight, shuddering gaze.

"I saw him too, from the kitchen window."

Here she saw his glow deepen, his eyes growing fiercer again.

"Wot's his name?"

"Daniel Bryant. He's a cotton merchant's son from London."

"A pretty lad, eh?"

She laughed lowly at his assumption, one she too had thought upon first meeting him herself.

"He's quite different from most of the people here, yes. But his business is growing well, despite it. He brings with him the softest linens, all the way from Egypt at times."

Jack's lip turn up annoyingly, less than concerned with what he did, only what his intentions were.

"Teague must ave' gone wholly daft since th' last I was ere'. Letting th' British trade system run amuck through town? That's a prize move on is' part."

"It's only one man, Jack."

"Need I remind ye, it _starts_ with one man, Liz'beth."

She knew he was right, for he spoke of what he'd seen, what even she had seen. They'd been through terrible British activity together, and survived, almost all of them. She stroked back on her son's unruly, black hair for a moment, suddenly cringing over what had been free acceptance for Eva's admirer prior to Jack's return and breakdown of the situation.

"You don't think he means harm to us, do you?"

She whispered this lowly as he glanced up, aware of the fear he'd put in his friend without intention.

"No," he shook his head with a warm smile, "Th' Cove is fine."

When he saw her breathe better and help little Jack down from his chair to wash up, he stood too and followed them toward the counter's edge. He leaned and watched as she rubbed the boy's green hands with a warm rag, remembering a million different times he had been propped on that same counter as a boy, and had his muddy, sandy hands wiped clean by his own mother.

"Ow' old is this fancy brute then?"

Elizabeth cleaned her son, but couldn't help but laugh at the way he continued to make mention of the man in question.

"Mr. Bryant is twenty-nine, I believe."

Jack couldn't help but wince at this, with both humor and interest in comparison to his own uncertain age.

"An' I suppose he and Eva ave' formed quite an' attachment t' one another?"

"He certainly has bound himself to her. But I doubt much of Eva's interest in him."

His ears buzzed with the slight hint of assumption, good assumption in Lizzie's voice.

"Wot' do ye doubt?"

"I doubt she's as fond of him, as he seems to be towards her. Mr. Bryant will surely ask her hand in marriage one day soon, there I cannot doubt, but in Eva's response I easily find myself doing so. Although she's brilliant with children, she's not keen in such frivolities as courting or marriage."

Jack's heart raced with something he couldn't quite explain to even himself. He didn't know how he felt about Eva, except that she haunted his every thought day and night, and that she was single handedly, the most fascinating creature to have ever crossed his accidental path. But knowing from Elizabeth, the one who he knew had an eye for everything on this spit of wreckage land, that Eva's heart did not lie anywhere near where this _Mr. Bryant's_ interests did, only made him smile faintly before he turned out of the kitchen, claiming he needed rest before supper.

* * *

Daniel walked her about the town for hours, far more than she would have liked having known Jack was back, but she couldn't deny him the relationship they had formidably built already. She didn't love Daniel by any means, but he cared and loved for her, and had promised to do so till then end of time. He had the means to support her well, with anything she could ever need or want, and it was a safe bet with him. He was handsome, a man who had come to easily charm most of the young girls on Shipwreck island since his initial visit thirteen months before. And although he could have any young woman in his marriage bed by the year's end, he had chosen her by a chance meeting in the market on day. Since which, he hadn't stopped treating her like a queen.

They careened in a few shops, where he bought her a few fine pieces of jewelry and silks, something he often did when they walked about through town. He made sure she knew exactly what he had to offer and what he planned to do for her, forever.

Daniel walked her back toward home when the sun began to sink to an orange, and Eva had asked him to join them for dinner out of kindness and much needed respect. He agreed, leaving her with her packages of finery and a sweet kiss at the corner of her mouth, before turning back towards his own home to wash up and get ready. She watched him for a short moment, and then moved inside of the house, exhausted and wishing she hadn't granted him the invitation.

Elizabeth caught her in the parlor with her packages, "I dare say Mr. Bryant is the only reason Shipwreck even has a proper economy."

Eva laughed at her and slouched into an aged armchair, tearing her shoes off and sighing. "That's most likely due to the fact that this town is built upon the lovely art of looting."

"A lovely one, indeed. If only he knew you could _pillage_ and _plunder_ with the best of them."

"Do you not think he assumes as much, living under the roof of pirate infamy?"

Elizabeth shook her head as she poked at the fireplace a moment.

"Daniel Bryant is a fine businessman, but common sense does not bequeath him."

Eva giggled out loud, accepting it as the truth she herself knew, and then twisted her hair in spindles about her finger as she suddenly realized something and sat up.

"Speaking of infamous raiders, what became of Jack?"

She looked about for a moment before following Elizabeth back into the hall, eagerly.

"He said he was going to rest before dinner."

"Oh." Her head fell in defeat as she glanced down the long corridor toward both her and his rooms.

Lizzie grinned at her and placed her hand sisterly on her shoulder. "How soon you forget the man doesn't sleep, darling Eva."

At this her eyes lit up again, knowing the fact to be absolute truth, one she had seen for herself long before. She smiled to Elizabeth and turned down the jetting, candlelit hall, creeping along on her bared feet toward the doorway of Jack's room. She'd spent more time in his room during his leave that she often spent in her own, for she always felt safer in it for some reason.

Her hand moved in a tiny fist up to the rough oak, ready to knock, but she stopped herself, thinking better of it. A wicked grin curled on her lips and she very carefully turned the knob instead, pushing on the silent door to slip inside of the darkness she had seen from underneath the crack. She could hardly make out anything, with the curtains drawn shut unlike the morning before his arrival, and no candles burning within. Eva wondered shortly if Elizabeth had tricked her into thinking he was here, when really he was out on the town with curvy company. She didn't think Lizzie could be that cruel, and hope in her friend's trust was restored when she finally could make out a lone figure at the opposite end of the room, standing with his back turned, looking out of a sliver of open drapery.

Eva smiled wide and tiptoed closer, trying her best to hold back on jumping at him or shouting his name out. The nearer she got, the stronger the scent of him filled the open space, with spices and wind-blown sweat, salt water and rum. It mixed over her head and through her senses until she felt weak in the knees and found herself falling toward him, her arms coming about to finally wrap around his waist from behind. She felt the muscles in his back leap when she touched him, and rove her hands softly against his dirty shirt to land together on his mid stomach, pressing through his shirt. She rested her cheek into the tense blades of his shoulders, breathing in all of him.

Jack had been unwarned before this consumption and he couldn't have asked for it any better. He hadn't heard her come in, with his eyes focused primarily on the activity of the low alleys of drunks and wenches below his room. He stood contemplating why he didn't care for travelling out into the chaos himself, and why he couldn't bring himself to find company and heavy drink for once. And then, when he felt those two familiar, delicate hands weave about his body, he knew exactly why that was.

Neither of them said a word, they only stood locked together, with Eva pressing his back into her face and chest desperately, while Jack covered her hands on his stomach with his own, brushing over her faint veins and knuckles. At any point he felt he could have taken advantage of her initiative and pushed her toward his long since used (or rather by his knowledge) bed, and commit himself to her for the rest of the night. But because the image of her yellow haired suitor continued to distress him, he simply let her be and stood tangled up in her arms for a long time, utterly silent.

It wasn't until he felt Eva's hands finally moved slightly beneath his to caress the muscles in his chest and stomach tenderly, that he also heard her speak softly and quickly.

"Thank you for keeping your promise and for the book, Jack. I missed you terribly."

He responded with nothing, for he could hardly think to breathe. He let her sigh once more as she lifted her head from his back, released her hold on his waist, and then moved away to the door again. He couldn't even bring himself to turn and watch her leave. All he could do, was count the seconds it took her to leave him and the room, and count the steps it took her to do so.

It wasn't that long at all, which felt better than he could have imagined. She was close to him again, so close that mere footsteps could bring him to her at any time he wished. He thought for a short moment, with a smile, about the book she mentioned, the one she had so taken to and he had gifted her with in secret. The book on Grace O'Malley, the woman he sensed she took as her heroine. The thought of it and of her altogether filled him with nothing but excitement and he admitted to himself, to her in a peaceable whisper through his mind, _"Not as much as I missed th' likes of ye, Eva love."_

* * *

A while passed before Elizabeth began setting the large dining table with a few of the other women in the house, and in which time Eva remained in her room dressing, Jack in his thinking and not worrying about impressing anyone to eat, and Teague in his study with little Jack, teaching him of the Cove's outer reefs and the dangers of having sailed through them with a blind man before.

Daniel arrived at a timely hour, just before the meal was to begin, and he joined Teague in the dining hall to speak to him of his plans for Eva, ones Teague had been waiting for. He knew how the merchant felt for the newest addition to his ever growing family, but he wasn't sure how he felt about all of it himself. Eva was different than Elizabeth and the other girls he took care of, they all desired marriage and families first and foremost, while she was much like himself, much like Jack in that she was concerned merely with freedom and limitless boundaries. Eva wasn't one to be tied down easily, but he accepted the young man's ideas and offerings of marriage with his blessing despite it. For he knew in his heart, that Eva's response would be what stopped Daniel Bryant from truly having her anyway.

Jack came to the table minutes later, greeting Daniel with a handshake and careening eye but little words, as he slumped into a chair at the opposite head of the table from his father. Elizabeth got little Jack situated in a chair beside his Jack himself, while Daniel took his place beside her son and close to Teague for continued discussion. Eva didn't emerge for a bit of time longer, but when she did, the room suddenly stopped.

Jack and Daniel both stood from their chairs simultaneously as she stood with a faint smile in the archway, in a long, courtly dress of indigo, same as her eyes. It pinched at her form primly, marking every perfect curve of her hips, her arms and breasts, where Jack's necklace to her sat upon her heaving chest, sparkling in the candlelight of a high chandelier. She dropped her face in embarrassment, brushing a loose curl from her face, while the rest of her hair sat woven high atop her head.

"My Eva, a gift t' whate'er man should earn er'."

Teague grinned proud as he moved to take her hand and lead her to a seat beside him at the table.

"Stop it." She giggled low as she sat down, trying to avoid all eye contact with Daniel across from her and Jack down and to her left side. Although she could still feel the heated glare of both of them upon her, one stronger than the other of course.

"Th' truth is spoken an' your Mr. Bryant agrees with me m'sure o' it."

"I do, wholeheartedly." He replied with a nod from across the table, and she held his eyes for a moment before it was interrupted by a deep growl of a voice.

"Make that three."

She turned slightly to catch Jack's burning eyes, but could not hold his gaze the same as she could Daniel's, for the simple fear that she might suffer from a quick and wonderful death. Instead she turned her face back ahead, focused on her plate and glass of wine as she lifted it and said, "I'm appreciate and in utter disagreement with the lot of you."

The three of them chuckled together, and as Elizabeth came to sit beside Eva with a gentle hand on her shoulder, they began to eat with necessary grace or prayer for the food. Daniel, Eva knew, had to ignore this short detail but he didn't seem to worry about it as he dug into the food his hostess had cooked.

"Mrs. Turner, your cooking is impeccable."

Lizzie smiled and sipped at her wine. "Thank you, Mr. Bryant."

Jack just rolled his eyes and helped his little nephew with the large plate of wild goose. Eva could see him out of the corner of her eye, and smiled at the scene that went unnoticed by most everyone else.

"So, do tell us Daniel, what's becoming o' yer cotton business?"

He beamed at the introduction of such a subject by Teague and began talking in what Eva felt was only circles, about the process of looming and the fine sheep they used to create the linens he and his father sold worldly. It didn't interest her, not half as much as one of Jack's many, still undelivered stories would have. She wondered what he'd gotten into since he'd been away, what he'd seen, who he had met, if he had plundered any good treasures at all. She wondered until the conversation over cotton and the British trade system had dulled finally.

Teague drew the talk further though, by bringing up Eva again. "An' what do ye think o' Eva with er' sailing?"

Daniel smiled kindly, but had a right mind to speak what he truly thought.

"Forgive me for speaking out on it in such a way, but I don't quite approve."

Jack's eyes lit up as he finally became aware of the rest of the table and conversation. He was fascinated beyond comparison now and couldn't keep his eyes off of Eva's face as she sunk lower and lower into her chair with every word that spilled from her gentleman's mouth.

"You see, I have been raised upon ships myself, and I know as well as you men that they are a place of great danger. I have no doubt, especially with what I've seen of her operation of one that she can do so beautifully. But I fear the risks that will follow her pursuit of such a thing."

Jack loved this, and Eva was nervous because she could sense without even looking that Jack was enjoying every second of it. Elizabeth and Teague could only sit tensely and listen to Daniel go on and on about his anxiousness toward Eva's own dreams.

"Evangeline is too fine a young lady to lose to the formidable perils of the open ocean, and I certainly could not see myself allowing her to sail about beyond the Cove's safety, not when I love her so."

While Daniel looked straight ahead into Eva's eyes when he said this, his trance was broken suddenly when Jack began choking on his food at the opposite end of the table. All eyes turned strangely on him, Elizabeth's lips tight and eyes begging of him to get control and grow up, while Teague found slight humor in it himself, and Eva could only stare at him with gratitude, for he apparently saw exactly what she did in Mr. Bryant. Jack laughed hard, trying to swallowed more wine with the food he couldn't get down, and eventually just got up with a genteel wave of his hand.

"I…I apologize but, I need t' see to some business in town."

Elizabeth sneered up at him, "Jack."

"I'm sorry, Lizzie. Th' food was th' best I've tasted yet. But I ave' to say g'night before I over stay me welcome in these turnin' topics at and'."

Eva smirked behind her linen napkin as she pretended to wipe her mouth to hide the humor. Daniel watched Jack go but bid him farewell in a gentlemanly fashion, and Elizabeth and Teague shared a glare of impossibility from across the open space.

They went back to eating for a while, discussing some matters and spinning in circles about others. Daniel raved about Eva for the rest of the meal, never taking his eyes off hers nor forgetting to add how well suited she would be for London life. Teague disagreed instantly in his mind, as did Elizabeth, and yet Eva was too preoccupied in her still laughing mind to think about much else but where Jack had really run off to. In fact, after some time at the table, it began to fill her mind so much, that she eventually formed her own excuse for taking leave.

With a hand over her stomach, she looked between all three of them with an innocent smile, "I apologize as well, but I'm not feeling too well. Too much sun today, I think."

Elizabeth placed her hand on Eva's forehead to feel it cooler than a fever would allow, but she didn't bother questioning it.

"You should go and rest."

"I agree." Daniel chimed in with a grin, "I can walk you to your room."

"No, no Daniel I'll be alright."

She rose from her chair and kissed and hugged Elizabeth and little Jack goodnight, and then moved across to squeeze Teague tight around the neck where he sat and kissed him on top of the head.

"Tomorrow I'll clean the Harlot and tie her up."

He didn't like the defeat he heard in his young Eva's voice, the one that seemed to give into Daniel's belief in the matter, but he nodded under her kiss and brushed her cheek as she moved aside to lean in and leave a less than worthy kiss on Mr. Bryant's cheek.

"Thank you for coming, Daniel. And the dress is beautiful."

"You look stunning in it, my love. Will I see you tomorrow, some time, perhaps for a stroll?"

Eva wanted to say no, but instead just nodded kindly. "If I'm feeling well enough, of course."

And with a final round of goodnight waves, she snuck through the archway of the dining room and quietly inched her way back towards the end of the corridor to the house. Jack's door was wide open and the room empty, so she knew he must be elsewhere, which meant she would have to find him.

"Hmm…" she pondered for a second in the mid hall, "…where on earth did you go, _pirate_?"


	12. Such a Rush

**

* * *

**

Such a Rush

* * *

_A boy with no companion  
Lost for baby blue  
Words more than mean it  
When they count for one like you._

_I would wrap the world in clover  
But you make me see my way  
And I would die for you tomorrow  
Would you come to me today?_

-**Never Met a Girl Like You Before** by Flogging Molly-

* * *

With her skirts bunched and her dress boots hitting the dirty pavement of the town one by one, Eva ran between alcoves of ship hulls and decks and topmasts, searching out anything that looked like Jack. She begged for a tricorn hat, which although many of them passed in her flight, none were his. She kept her eyes peeled for his mass of dreadlocks and red bandana, but saw nothing. Her mind rushed and her legs were weak by the time she stopped for a breath.

"_He's trying to kill me. He's making me suffer, the bastard."_

She leaned against a stone cool wall in a deep alleyway of the town, breathing heavily in and out as she smoothed down the skirts of her dress. Her heart raced like that of one of a wild horse. Her skin tingled in the cool November air, and only after she could find proper oxygen for her lungs again, did she realize how cold it actually was. She rubbed her shoulders for a moment, before turning on her boot heels to head back to the house again.

Never did she expect to hear a voice behind her.

"Givin' up on th' hunt so soon?"

She shut her eyes against the sound and bit her lower lip as she heard his boots approach.

"Damn, an' ye were so close t' finding me too."

His mocking sigh traced a ticklish sensation down the nape of her neck, making her spine jump as she stood upright.

"Have you truly forgotten to grow up? Or do these antics precede a lack of childhood altogether, I wonder?"

Jack smiled at her teasing voice and stepped in closer to her back, never touching her body, but feeling as close to her as possible. He ignored her question for a long moment, dwelling merely on the heat radiating off of her skin, and the scent of wild jasmine in her hair.

"Swear t' me, ye aren't foolish enough t' fall in love with that cotton oaf."

Eva grinned and tilted her head a little, wanting to turn and look in his eyes, but didn't for fear of what might happen if she did. So she remained perfectly still before him, taking a deep breath.

"Would it make so much difference to you if I were, Captain Sparrow?"

"Only if ye lie about it, an' let yerself get tied up in 'is nonsense."

"Why ever would I lie about matters of the heart?"

"Don't taunt me, Eva."

Shutting her eyes against the cool air once more, she spun on her boots toward him, raising her eyes and opening them with a single reply. "Or _what_?"

She had him fixed with her mockery, in ways he would never allow another woman to get away with. Jack held her glare for a second longer, before reaching and taking her chin in his hand to tilt it up higher. He wanted to see the glow of the moon play in her eyes, and it worked out charmingly.

"You don' want me t' answer that."

"Yes I do."

"No."

"Jack."

"Lady _Bryant_?" She tore her face from his hand at that, and scowled with a step back.

"You're very cruel."

"I ave' the right."

"A God given one, no doubt?"

"God an' I ave' little understanding of one another."

She shook her head with a slight grin.

"Why did you come back, if but to harass me?"

"I wanted t' do a little more than just _harass_ ye, love."

"What then?"

Jack took a single step closer, but she didn't move. Confidently she held his eyes.

"What do you want?"

"Ignorance does not suit ye."

"I am perfectly serious. What is it you want from me?"

Shaking his head this time, he leaned down closer to her face, catching the spark in her eyes and short breath from between her soft lips.

"I'll take whate'er you'll give t' me, darling."

His breath was sinister and sweet on her mouth and cheeks as she worked just to keep her balance. It had been nineteen months of longing and waiting and praying he would show up again, so that she could have this moment in time to prove herself to him.

"You should truly digress from such a statement, for you know not what can come of it."

"Oh I think I know well nough'. I stumbled pon' a scene none too different from this one before…"

"Assumption has been the death of strong men in similar positions as yours. You haven't but a small clue of what this dark alley can honestly lead to."

His twisted grin appealed to her as he moved closer, same as her words appealed to his every sense as she kept stepping back.

"Show me what can come o' it then."

"No."

He paused at her demand against it, but then she spoke softly again.

"You show _me_."

Done in, he slid toward her and wrapped his arm around her waist as he lifted her from the ground.

"With pleasure…" he sighed, pressing her tenderly back to the stone wall again.

Leaning into her with desperate advance, he took one of her hands in his and stretched it out on the stones. Jack found a prominent groove in the wall and placed her shaking fingers down upon it, "Grip that tight." Eva sighed at the way he spoke so richly, in a half whisper, half groan, and then moved to place her second hand out far from her body, grasping to another jutting stone in the wall.

"Are you preparing me for a hurricane?"

He laughed darkly and moved his hands back to the slender waistline of her blue dress, his lips touching the heated skin of her forehead with a wet peck.

"You'll be wishing 'twas a hurricane before m' through with ye."

Eva tried to breathe and found she couldn't, with the warmth of his entire body pressed into hers; forcing her against the wall until she was nothing but melting skin. He remained silent for the time being as she watched his hands rove over the curves of her body through her dress and heavy skirts. One hand was firm on her taut, pleading nipple through her bodice, while a second dove down to begin pulling up the numerous skirts and bunching them until he found more skin beneath. Eva gasped when his hand met with her upper thigh, just over-top of her stockings.

Jack grinned wildly at the contact, "One step closer than th' last time."

She widened her eyes and looked down as he lifted her thigh and leg up toward him, brushing away the cottons and silks of her dress as he examined the matching blue bows of her knickers.

"Now this is th' Vang'line Marley I remember…"

"Of course, how could one forget such a _despicable_ sight." She crooned through anxious breaths.

Jack rolled his eyes and leaned his face down to the curve of her neck near the stone, whispering with a growl, "Wicked 'nough t' leave me restless fer nineteen months."

"Oh well," she stammered with a giggle as he looked in her eyes again. "Let us not waste another moment upon your restlessness then, sir. Have your way with me until you've seen fit to die of contentment."

She stretched her arms out, gripping the stones tighter, readying herself for whatever he was capable of. Jack took it as a glorious sign, and quickly snatched her mouth between his own lips, kissing her fervently. His hands weaved through her soft hair as he untied it from its ribbon hold, and watched from the corner of his eyes, as it spilled down against her shoulders. He begged entrance for his tongue between her lips, and when granted, he moved inside roughly, savoring every bit of warmth and sweetness he had almost let himself forget in the time apart from her mouth. He remembered instantly why she plagued him so, her mouth indeed was the most delicious, comfortable place he'd ever been before.

Eva found herself grinning when he finally did release her lips, only to then turn her eyes to trepidation as Jack eased his hands and gaze down her body, sliding to the ground in front of her. He held her skirts bunched still, her one leg he let finally drape down against his back after having removed her boots, and he kissed lightly the skin of her inner thigh as it met the level of his mouth.

She held her breath hard, zipping her eyes shut with a wince, "Perhaps I'll be the one to die first."

Jack smiled and relaxed her as he ran his hands along her stocking and open thigh, and then gently eased her body down the wall a little, until he could grasp her hips and bring his face closer to her throbbing, welcoming center.

"You'll not die until m' good an' done with ye."

"And when will that be?"

He looked up at her from the ground, as his hands slowly inched inwards and under her large skirts to find the wet folds of delicate skin that lay beneath. When a single fingertip came into contact with the spot, she panted instantly with his husky response.

"Never."

And before she could concentrate on what was coming, she felt it arrive within her; a single, jetting finger. Jack plunged it inside quickly, to avoid knowledge of it, to watch as her face contorted against the wall and her own knuckles grew into a fierce white with her hold on the approved stones. She felt her heart stop as her breathing suddenly increased, and oxygen poured in and out of her lungs at rapid speed. Jack's hands on her hips as he drove the single finger deep within her and then slid it back out again, drove her insatiably mad. She needed more, and voiced it rather soon, sooner than he had even imagined for her.

"_Another_…more, Jack…"

Biting his lip to contain himself, he nodded and slid one more finger within her, taking his eyes from her knuckles and lolling head, to disappear underneath of her skirts as well. He lifted the blue cotton and white lace over his head, accepting his hide in the darkness of her heat and pulsation, and quickly brought his mouth up to where he could feel the small, rhythmic bud asking for his help. He lapped over it in an instant with the whole of his tongue, tasting the bittersweet sap covering it, and was delighted when he heard her scream out above him in the open air of the night.

"Jack--PLEASE!"

He loved that part, when women threw manners into such improper sport. It made him feel like the devil himself in most cases, especially lodged between Eva's sinful thighs. He granted her wish and carefully moved his fingers from within her heat to instead speedily replace it with his tongue. He filled her as much as he could between the fragile folds of wet skin, and pumped his tongue same as he would any other ligament he had to offer her. He curled it upward when he felt certain parts of her shaking differently, and tasted every corner inside of her he could reach.

Even without seeing it, he could still both hear and picture the sound of her nails as they scratched the stones she held to for dear life. She screamed out more, almost screeching the one or two times he flicked at her clit with the pad of his thumb in a circular motion. The muscles in her thighs gripped hard to his shoulders and face, pulling in him as close as she could manage to get him to her. Eva's head hit the wall in distress, completely un-thwarted by the almost surreal movement of his tongue deep inside of her body, moving up and down, in and out like a game of some kind; a game set by the most experienced of champions.

He sensed the greatness of her own experience too, in the way her hips bucked at his mouth and the sound of her whimpers, perfectly in tune with every movement her body made at him. It both saddened and delighted him, knowing that she was well beyond the point at which he would have needed to do extra leg work to get her to this point, where he could feel the boiling inside of her. The trenches were tightening against his taste buds as he slithered along the suppleness of her folds a few more times, pressing down hard with his thumb onher striving bud.

Jack heard her cry out for him and felt the heels of her stockings and feet dig into his shoulder blades, and knew what was happening and what too was coming. Eva struggled at the wall, trying to hold to it as best she could when she felt a rush of hot blood go straight from her toes to her head against proper gravity. White washed across her eyes and every bit of her warmed as the sweet juices flowed from inside of her to be neatly and greedily consumed by Jack's searing mouth upon her.

She shut her eyes and rested until he finished tasting the last bit of her. And then waited as he carefully lowered her feet to solid ground again and stood before her. This though, didn't work as well as he had hoped, and the second he finally took his arm from her waist, Eva's body tilted off into a semiconscious faint.

"Whoa…" he murmured, catching her in his arms quickly and lifting her entire body from the ground as she clung to his neck, the stars still filling her eyes. "…Eva?"

She smiled in a strange afterglow of something she'd never quite given proper credit to in her daydreams, and then looked up into his dark, brooding eyes.

"I can't feel my legs anymore."

Jack shook his head and laughed at her before sweeping down to take her mouth in a gentle kiss. He tasted of things she knew were her own, and it made her only want more of him. The need was too great to let her temporary paralysis stop her from having him the rest of the night, and she pulled away concerned as she held strongly to his neck.

"You're not finished with me yet, are you?"

His brow twisted wickedly and he stared down into her eyes as he walked with her still bundled into his arms.

"I told ye lass, m' never going t' be quite through with those eyes, an' lips…an' good Lord those thighs now..."

She was amused by him through exhaustion but asked, "Then where are we going?"

"We're going t' find a bed I can lay ye down upon." He raised his head to watch his step down the narrow passageway of the dark town, heading back for the house. "We ave' t' make your dearest Mr. Bryant proud. Safety first, Eva."

She rolled her eyes at him and rested her head down into the crook of his neck, breathing him in as she was half lulled to sleep by the movement of his steady swagger through town. The walk wasn't a long one, but it was long _enough_. By the time Jack had quietly tiptoed through the silent, somewhat sleeping house and made it through the door of his room, he glanced down in the soft moonlight to see Eva sound asleep in his arms.

Being a true pirate, he could have woken her, thrown her upon his sheets and ravished the rest of her into incoherent, immovable parts before morning. But being a good man, the side that seemed to plague him with her again, he instead laid her down across the mattress gently, making sure her weakened legs were placed properly under the blankets to avoid spasms through the night, and brushed through her hair as he climbed in to the other side of the bed.

She stirred a few times as he covered the both of them completely with the sheets and quilt, and it gave him a small glimmer of hope that she might wake and still want to finish what she had claimed. But she only grew deeper into sleep each time. Jack curled in against her, letting her cling to his shirt and neck in an unconscious effort of wanting, and then slowly let himself too fall into a paralyzed mode of thought as he watched the Cove's blue waters dance on the ceiling of his room.

Eva's breath on his burning skin and beating heart was what finally made him shut his eyes though.


	13. Be As You Are

**

* * *

**

Be As You Are

* * *

_Well she was precious like a flower  
She grew wild, wild but innocent.  
A perfect prayer in a desperate hour  
She was everything beautiful and different._

_Stupid boy, you can't fence that in  
Stupid boy, it's like holding back the wind._

-**Stupid Boy** by Keith Urban-

* * *

The combination of the beating sun from the North, the wafting scent of women's homely activities, and the rushing sound of bare feet and screaming children outside was what woke Jack the next morning. Usually, at least when he did sleep for any short amount of time on the Pearl, he was awoken by a storm or call for land or any other necessary worry. But not here at the Cove; not in this place.

He flipped onto his back still fully clothed from what he could remember was a less than thrilling night in bed with Eva, but no less what he wanted for that. A smile trailed his lips even though she wasn't there, for it seemed just the very thought of her warmed parts of him that he usually only allowed to warm from rum or fierce, paid company. He chuckled under his breath as he rolled from the bed, thinking about the look he had put on her face the night before, and the way her nails had scratched those stones as she begged for him. He knew that thought would stay with him most of the day.

He pulled on his boots, found his hat and coat and made his way out of the room and down the hall towards the parlor and kitchen. He greeted scattered women doing household tasks, but didn't find Elizabeth or Eva among them. Instead he heard the shouts of their names from outside, and wandered toward the private dock from the front.

Elizabeth was sitting with a few of the young girls, stringing together all sorts of beads to make necklaces. She turned when she noticed Jack, and smiled.

"Good morning."

"Mornin' Liz." He replied, coming to stand beside their small huddle of dresses and beading.

"Did you sleep well?"

There was a hint of knowing curiosity in her voice, and when he looked down to see her grinning in that way only Elizabeth had of grinning, the way that affirmed she knew all, he shook his head with a smirk.

"Sleep is sleep when ye don't get any on th' sea."

She went on helping the girls tie strings about their necks and replied, "Very well then."

"Where's th' little barefoot, devil sailor at?"

Elizabeth rolled her eyes at his attempt to mask his interest in Eva, but accepted it as Jack's way of dealing with his demons and slowly raised her hand to point off in the direction of a small patchy place at the end of the property's slope. It was the only grassy area upon the fortress, one his mother had insisted on when Teague had brought her to live here.

He turned and watched as Eva spun around in another of her short gypsy day dresses, covered in beads and bangles from head to each bare toe, as she fought a handful of young boys with a wooden sword to match theirs.

He shook his head, not knowing how else to react to such a sight. Little Jack clung to her side as they fought to protect themselves against a couple of rowdy, older boys. They shouted and laughed, making perfect stances, lunging back and forth between the grass and dirt. He hadn't known she could handle a sword so well, even a wooden one at that. And although he would spend forever from that moment denying she was more brilliant with one than any man he'd ever met, Jack knew it was true.

"She's taken to teaching the boys when Teague is too tired for it."

Jack nodded.

"My son is better than his father at times, I fear." She laughed and he did the same, not wanting to admit it as a perfectly righteous statement.

He wanted to walk over and interrupt the lesson, or at the very least initiate a routine from an honest pirate captain, but couldn't find the spirit enough to break the one he saw in her as she danced around with the young boys. So instead he took a seat down on a few loose planks next to Elizabeth, and kept a close eye on the activity as they talked.

"I saw Will a month ago, I guess 'twould be."

Her ears perked as she glanced over at Jack, pausing with a few glass beads in her palm.

"He was ferrying over a few of me men, after we ran through a storm off th' Honshu coast."

"Japan?"

"Aye, lost three good sailors with that one."

"I'm sorry."

He brushed it off as nothing but life, and went on.

"E' asked me all bout' ye and th' boy, and wanted to make sure I turned im' into a good pirate." Elizabeth laughed with a tear in her eye as she watched Jack shuffle inside of his coat pocket. "Almost forgot this too," a thick bundle of letters slid out in his hand as he passed them over to her gently, "Will wrote these for you and little Jack, said e' wanted to write more if I could carry them t' ye when I pass through here."

Her hands moved off the soft parchment, her name and little Jack's etched in fading ink, all of them bound with fraying twine from what must have been months or years at sea. She cried as she felt Jack's arm drape over her shoulder and pull her into a calm embrace. He'd been there for her like this numerous times through the years, and it had been far too long this time. Eva had taken to soothing her when Teague couldn't and while Jack was gone, but something about his touch reminded her of Will so often, that it helped better than any other.

"I'll bring ye whate'er he gives me, Lizzie. I promise."

She smiled and leaned back, still wrapped under his strong arm.

"I know you will, thank you."

He kissed the top of her head like that of a brother, or best friend and Eva stopped to take a breath from a distance with the boys, looking over just in time to see it. She smiled, knowing how precious a thing their relationship was, and how much they'd been through together. She was glad Jack was back to comfort Elizabeth for a while; she'd hoped he'd come back for such things.

Before they parted enough to turn back and watch Eva, the children had already begun their practice again and Eva had looked away to focus on winning against the small heathens. She screeched and laughed with them through another intense hour of fighting, but eventually she let them win and put on a magnificent show of dying, slowly and bitterly until she fell backwards into the mud.

The boys cheered while Elizabeth and Jack laughed at the show. He was drawn to every bit of her, all the little parts that came out in time, the things he hadn't seen when she was nearly arrested for petty theft, or when she had snuck aboard his ship. There were dozens of different corners to Eva Marley, things he had only just begun to find, and which blew the fear of fascination clear out of his mind.

Elizabeth stayed for a few moments longer, before turning back inside the house to take to cleaning clothes and sweeping the floors. Jack sat for a short time watching little Jack help Eva to her health again, but moved toward the docks when he saw the boys all rushing away into town.

He wandered down the length of the pier, noting all the work Teague and Eva had put into the old ship he'd first learned to sail on. It was remarkable to him, that it had been brought back from the dead. He was lost inside of the fine red oak boarding and the high, perfectly sewn white sails, when he heard a voice behind him and felt the point of something in his back.

"Don't get any ideas, pirate. She's all mine now."

He grinned and threw his face back at her, holding up his hands.

"I swear I won't raid er' till she's out on clear waters." Spinning around, he held his smirk as he watched Eva's eyes sparkle blue and the point of her wooden sword press into his chest softly. "All's fair on th' sea, love."

"Unless I take you first, Captain." She stepped closer, letting the sword trail down his stomach.

"Is that a challenge?"

"Could be a guarantee if you don't watch your step, Jack."

"Ye can't seduce e'ery captain in the seven seas t' get their ships, lass."

Eva's eyes faded into a mysterious glow as she inched even closer to him, her breath warm on his chin as she began to reply, "Shall I at least try my skills on y--"

"Eva, my dear!" A shout from behind them interrupted her concluding lure toward him.

Jack's gaze darted over her head to see one Mr. Bryant, standing with a hearty grin on his face at the foot of the docks. He rolled his eyes, looked back down at hers and teased with a whisper.

"I believe e's come t' sweep you off your feet, dear Miss Marley."

"Shut it." She said, still standing inches from his mouth, not wanting to turn and see Daniel.

"Don' keep th' poor brute waiting, Eva."

"Perhaps I want to keep him w--"

"Evangeline!" She was interrupted by Daniel's shout again, calling her. "I've come to offer you a walk about town. If you're not too busy with Captain Sparrow, that is."

Jack laughed, hearing the obliviousness of the younger man's statement. Eva pushed on his chest with a scowl and turned to finally see Mr. Bryant at the start of the pier. She was half leaning into Jack's chest, not wanting to leave the warmth she felt surrounding her and washing her thoughts into anything less than coherent.

She heard him growl low in her ear as he pinched her bottom. "Indulge th' man, darling. I'll be ere' all night." Eva jumped a little with a crazed smile and then took a deep breath before finding Daniel's distant eyes again.

"I'd love very much to walk with you, Daniel."

Jack beamed proudly as she swung back to see his eyes, and shoved the wooden sword against his chest for safe keeping. Her eyes were killing him, the way they changed shades of blue with every emotion that came over her.

"You'll pay for this later."

A wicked grin covered her face.

"Is that a threat?"

She shook her head and stepped backwards a ways, slowly keeping his gaze tight within hers.

"I thought we already established, Jack…" her boots stomped away carefully as she concluded with a sexy little turn that drove him mad, "…I only make _guarantees_."

He had to hold himself in check as he watched her hips sway against the light, silk skirt of her dress. Her legs glowed in the sunlight with every leaping step they made down the dock, and he almost lost control when she jumped down to meet Daniel and slid her arm into his. He wasn't sure what would be said between the two of them during their walk, one that seemed to have become routine. But he knew whatever Daniel Bryant, cotton God of Shipwreck could say to her on an afternoon stroll, he could say ten times better between the sheets of a bed.

Under his breath, as he made his way down the dock to check on his crew and the ship, he mumbled knowingly, "You're all _mine_ t'night, Eva."

* * *

'_Indulge th' man darling.' _

She had, for the whole of the afternoon.

'_I'll be ere' all night.' _According to the plot she'd devised through her entire stroll with Daniel, he _would_ be there all night, begging her forgieness.

Eva laughed as Daniel's hand on her arm suddenly grew more urgent, and he pulled her out of the way of a hoard of screaming children. "Whoa there…" he laughed as they both watched the barefoot, rambunctious kids run down the hilly path they were walking on, only feet away from the Sparrow residence again.

"Children are delightful, aren't they?"

She was too focused on her ploy against Jack to hear what he was saying, but he brought her back to reality as always.

"Eva, did you not hear me?"

"What, oh yes…_delightful_."

He walked her along slowly, obviously avoiding letting her return home for the evening.

"I think I should like to have a handful of boys. What of you?

She was confused by the conversation, but nodded anyway. "Little girls would be nice perhaps."

"And sons no doubt too, with the way you take to the boys here?"

Again, a nod answered him.

"I see you making an ideal mother one day. One day _soon_ perhaps."

She understood the reference in his voice and found herself suddenly shivering against the late afternoon breeze. Looking up into Daniel's eyes as they approached the door to the house, she feared what he was coming at with the talk.

"Evangeline, you have such potential for a city like London."

"Do I?"

"Yes, undoubtedly. The societal life of England is something you would charm at best. You would find such thrill in entertaining yourself amid the company there, I would not lie."

"I like the company here too."

"Indeed, but it is only one town, one place in the whole of the world."

"I would like to see the world."

He snuffed at this, knowing what she meant. "On a pirate ship, no doubt."

"Is that truly such a bad thing, Daniel?"

"Bad only at the risk which comes with it. I meant what I said last night at dinner. It would break my heart to lose you to such an environment, when you could be so beautifully suited to a nice home and children of your own. I could give you the world without the risk of being at sea, Eva."

"But it's not the same."

There was fight in her voice, an argumentative side he'd seen from her before, but one he learned well how to douse too.

"Would it make so much a difference to you, if I said I dream nightly of making you my wife?"

Her eyes widened in fear. "You do?"

"I do, my sweet. Nothing more would suit me in this life."

"N-nothing?" She stuttered as he stood holding her shaking hands.

"Not one, single thing."

Daniel brushed a few curls out of her eyes and leaned down to gently kiss her on the lips. It was the first time their mouths had met this way before, and although Eva granted him the right to it, she was frigid and nervous under his moving lips. She didn't know how to take them or what to do with them like she did with Jack's. They merely kissed _her_, while she remained idle to only accept them. Mr. Bryant though did not seem to mind either way.

He moved away with a romantic grin, "I love you, Evangeline. More than you can know."

She did not reply, and instead only squeezed his hand anxiously and turned about with a smile toward the doorway. Her back leaned against it as Daniel nodded and tipped his hat before walking back down the path toward the markets again. Eva watched him for a moment, unable to speak or think or breathe, and then eventually turned the knob and forced her way inside of the back door to the kitchen.

When she fell against the it's safety, half hidden by a curtain from the separated cellar, she grunted and through her head back hard against the wood.

"This is all _his_ fault. Insufferable man!"

The curtain drew back unexpectedly and Elizabeth stood with a calm smile on her face.

"They're all _insufferable_. Which one?"

Eva sighed with a short laugh and then walked toward Elizabeth, falling into her sisterly arms.

"The one who decided I should walk with Mr. Bryant, only to be enticed into _marriage_."

Lizzie brushed her hair with a faint and knowing grin as she walked Eva toward the large wooden table and sat her down. She pulled a bottle of rum from the cabinet with two small glasses and took a seat beside her, pouring out the alcohol for both their minds.

"He knew _exactly_ what the outcome of that turn about the town would be. I know he did."

She downed the glass quickly and poured another for herself, wincing as it went down her throat in a burn.

"Jack loves to test the very limits of every situation. I cannot argue that with you."

"Well he's tested mine well today. He's tested them right into my bearing of _Bryant_ sons and being bundled off to London before the year's end."

"Is that what Daniel intends?"

She nodded and held her third glass close to her lips, holding back from drinking.

"If I will so have him."

"And will you, Eva?"

"_Should_ I, Lizzie?"

Elizabeth wasn't sure what to tell her friend, her near sister. Marriage was a tricky thing, something that even she hadn't been so prepared for when it happened finally. But she had wanted to marry Will, always, and that was the difference. She knew Eva wasn't so interested in Mr. Bryant as she was other things, and other _men_ in particular.

"You can only do what you want, you have the choice."

Eva grabbed Elizabeth's hand as if begging for an easy answer.

"What if I don't know what I want?"

"You know you love the sea, and you want to sail."

"Yes."

"And you know Mr. Bryant would never allow that, especially if you were his wife."

Her lip curled up angrily at the statement. "No. He would not."

"Would you put your freedom in jeopardy to be a merchant's wife? I don't think you would."

She shook her head and Elizabeth softly took Eva's chin in her hand, lifting it up.

"For you are far wiser than that."

She nodded against Lizzie's palm.

"And when Mr. Bryant spins a ring from his coat pocket and kneels before you…"

Eva grinned wickedly from the corner of her mouth and whispered back.

"I'll bop him in the head with my wooden sword and run away."

Elizabeth laughed hard and moved her palm to instead gently pat Eva's cheek.

"I knew Jack brought you to me for a reason."

The mention of his name brought her scheme boiling right back to the surface of her mind, completely covering the subject of marriage or Daniel. And with a menace of a grin she changed the topic sneakily.

"Speaking of Chief to the_ insufferable…_where is he?"

"Teague said he was working on stocking the Pearl this afternoon."

"Good." Eva stood up and pulled Elizabeth along to the pantry, "I need your help with something before he returns."

"What?"

Eva rubbed her hands together with a sly glare, "Merely, sweet _revenge_."


	14. A Gypsie's Ruse

**

* * *

**

A Gypsies' Ruse

* * *

_Big white sail, red sunset  
Lobster tail and don't forget  
My, my, my - my key lime pie._

_Not too tart, not too sweet  
My baby loves to watch me eat  
Her key lime pie  
Her key lime pie._

-**Key Lime Pie** by Kenny Chesney-

* * *

Jack and Gibbs worked to get the ship stocked to the nines, ordering the crew with barrels and crates and livestock of all kinds for the whole of the afternoon. They traded bits of the treasure they'd found for supplies, and made good on past promises with certain merchants for interest. It was decided that a few of the men would stay aboard with their company and drink for the evening and watch after the stock-hold, and that in the morning, as dreadful a decision as it was, they would leave the Cove.

He hadn't wanted to do it, but Jack knew that staying any longer, at least for this trip, would be too much to bear when he finally was able to get away from Eva. She was slowly draining him of all fair thought, and he had to find his stability again, or try to anyway. He'd have her tonight, but anything more worried him.

They left the crew to mingle with the last of the supply of rum and cabbage, and Jack asked Gibbs to join him back at Teague's for dinner, hoping that having his first mate there to add interaction would make Eva's presence easier to deal with. It was a good plan, although he had a feeling it was really just for peace of mind rather than any actual, functioning safety.

Together they strolled through the town and back to Teague's.

"So wot's become o' the little impersonator then, Jack?" Gibbs asked with humor.

"She's learned t' fancy silk again."

The old man laughed heartily. "An' you've not taken advantage o' that, yet?"

"Ah, if a man but had the means t' keep that wild thing in check, mate…"

They joked about Eva for the rest of their walk, Jack warning Gibbs of the very intensity by which she had changed, and that he wouldn't go near her with a pistol even. Everything that spun from his lips was a fabrication to hold his status with his crew, and none of it meant a single thing in the scheme of his desire for her really. He just wasn't ready to be marked as a lost cause for her quite yet.

They made their way inside of the house a few minutes later and were pleasantly welcomed by the scent of burning herbs and spices that filtered around their hungry noses. Gibbs soon disappeared to find Teague, a close and old friend of his, but Jack quickly snatched back the tattering fabric of the kitchen curtain to see Elizabeth and Eva standing over a mess of cooking, jaws dropped at him.

He grinned when he saw Eva get up and come to the curtain.

"Oh, won't ye just make a lovely, little housewife for Mister Bryant."

Elizabeth rolled her eyes, knowing Eva would handle it. And she did.

"Perhaps I will." She grasped the curtains he held and scowled at him. "Thanks to you alone, Jack."

"Just doing my part t' intervene with nature, love."

"As am I this evening. Now if you'll please leave us women be for once in your life…" She shut the curtains in his face, slightly tempted by his twitching mustache and blackened eyes. But she went back to cooking with only spurring thoughts of him, as always.

Jack fell away from the curtain and kitchen wall, wandering off to find Gibbs and his father, but instead he ran into little Jack halfway down the hall. He took his hand and led him away to find the other men in the house, glancing back at the kitchen as he leaned in and whispered to the boy.

"I hope ye know better than t' fall for girls an' their tricks."

Little Jack just smiled up at him with a nod as they swayed together down the hall.

"Good lad."

* * *

Between the time that Jack had arrived back at the house and taken his mini protégé off to teach him the finer lessons of life and why the sea is so much more important than women, and the time in which the girls finished cooking, he had downed half a bottle of rum and lost half his mind. A combination that would have been better suited for any other evening but the one Eva had maneuvered against him; with or without his knowledge.

They brought each of the dishes out one by one, lobster and catfish cooked perfectly, all sorts of sweet vegetables and sauces, as well as three or four different bottles of wine. Jack and Teague held their respective seats at the heads of the table, while Gibbs sat to one side of Teague and little Jack to the other, and the girls each took their renewed places on either side of Jack, for all intensive purposes.

Jack couldn't keep his eyes off Eva, even though his plan had been to make his leaving easier. The scent of her jasmine soap filled his nose even more so than any of the food before him, and he had to force himself to breathe it away for concentration. He ate when everyone else did, indulging in the buttery rich lobster that melted against his tongue, and stuffing himself with as much fresh potatoes and greens as was possible. He filled his opposing hunger, the one for Evangeline, by jamming his stomach instead.

Eva and Elizabeth shared quick, unnoticed glances, preparing mentally for the main event to come. They joined the conversation that sparked between Teague and Gibbs about the stocking of the Pearl, but hadn't expected the news that eventually filtered from it.

"Will not your supplies and food spoil waiting on the ship?"

Gibbs turned to answer the girl who had once been Elijah to him, and smiled. "Not in one night, lass. Suppose Jack didn't mention yet, that we're leavin' come dawn."

Eva's eyes widened, moved to Teague's, then onto Elizabeth's who were wide and saddened the same, and finally she shot a single glance to Jack who had his mouth stuffed with catfish.

"No." She replied to Gibbs while still staring at Jack coldly. "He failed to reveal that point."

He swallowed the fish down hard, fearful of her glazed eyes, like the Caribbean sea in the midst of a hurricane. Eva turned away a second later to continue eating, while Gibbs went on about the details of their leave that he knew of.

"We're t' be sailin' south an' then east, cross to Mexico again."

Teague nodded as he watched Eva's face drop low over her face, "Mexico, eh? Treasure t' be had there?"

"No doubt, there's a might bit o' it left, mate."

"Fine pearls off the Mexican coast." He replied again, still focused on Eva's reaction.

Gibbs agreed but it went half unheard. Jack continued eating quietly, but nearly choked when he saw the look in his father's stormy eyes as he looked up from Eva to him. He'd only seen his father's eyes that shade of grey once before, the day his mother died.

But just as suddenly as the table had gone somber, he saw Eva's face flip up from her food and brighten as she gulped down her glass of wine ferociously. The main course of the meal came to a close thereafter, with Gibbs and Teague privately conversing, little Jack fighting imaginary enemies with the last of his peas and carrots, while Eva caught Elizabeth's eyes.

"Should we bring out dessert?" She asked with a wild smirk, one that had renewed her prior sadness.

Nodding with the same quirky smile, Lizzie rose from her chair as Jack watched them with sudden wariness. The two of them cleared the table carefully, letting the men's stomachs settle well enough before finally making it back to the kitchen to work on getting the claimed dessert.

Elizabeth lifted one of the pies, a blackberry one, and eyed Eva as she lifted the second, one of her own secret, family based recipes from the Caribbean islands; key lime. She had explained that it wasn't the pie itself that would prove entertainment for them, but what she had stuck inside of the regular recipe. A single ingredient that when consumed to a hearty proportion, the one she had planned for Jack, would do wonders. _Unspeakable_ wonders.

"You're not going to kill him, are you?" Lizzie asked fearfully.

"Of course not. And if he does die from the effects of it, then his legend will be far more _superior_ than it is even now."

Elizabeth shook her head and moved through the curtain handling the first, harmless pie, with Eva on her heels and a sinister glow on her face. Together they walked back to the dining hall, and while Elizabeth placed the blackberry pie to the end of the table where Teague, Gibbs and her son sat waiting with wide and excited eyes, Eva sauntered toward Jack's end. Their eyes were glued to one another, as he watched her come nearer, his gut jumping in striking, unusual horror, even for him.

She walked around to the back of his chair, letting her arm with the pie drape casually over his right shoulder as she held it up to his nose and let her face tuck neatly around his left shoulder to see.

"And this one…" she purred in his ear as he felt his eyes closing into his head, "…I made especially for _you_, Jack."

Teague, Gibbs and Elizabeth watched from the other end at the way Eva hung on Jack, and the way the pie seemed to be something unlike the other one, quite obviously. Little Jack was too concerned with covering his mouth in blackberry sauce to care much about any of it.

Eva sat the pie down in front of Jack and carefully cut him a slice. He looked at it, then studied her with vigor as she swept into her chair beside him, staring right back.

"Wot' kind is it?" He finally asked, lifting the fork to the plate.

"Key lime. An ancient recipe of my grandmother's."

He gulped a little, concerned only by the ancient bit. "A _gypsy_ grandmother, perchance?"

Eva rolled her eyes and pushed the plate closer to him.

"Does it honestly matter?"

He hesitated for another moment, glancing from the pie to the pout she drew on her face.

"You're not going to eat the pie I worked so long to make…for _you_?"

She tangled him up in guilt, well weaved to do its job. Jack let her hook slide into him, "'Course I am."

And with that he let the fork cut down on the pointed end of the slice, and drew up a piece of the white and faint lime colored pie. Elizabeth's eyes focused on the scene from the other end of the table, as he moved the dessert into his mouth, letting a little crème dust his mustache, chewed slightly on the crust and swallowed it with a smile. He couldn't deny it was the best thing, other than rum or Eva, he'd ever tasted.

Eva moved her thumb up toward his mouth, wiping away the dollop of crème and then purposefully sucking it off in front of his face. He held her eyes as he watched her finger slide between her lips, feeling a pang of something deep inside of him, something that obviously wasn't going to cooperate with his mind's effort to remain unburned by Eva on this night. Instead he just gulped as she smiled before him, and filled his mouth with more pie, figuring food to be the only remedy against her advances.

"How did I do?" She asked with another whisper only he could hear.

Jack nodded fiercely, swallowed a bite and replied. "Delicious."

This made her proud, despite the effect she was waiting for, the one that she noticed coming along nicely only minutes later as his brow began to twitch and his lips curled with every new bite of the pie. His eyes faded darker, desperate looking and she grinned with fascination as she glanced back to see Elizabeth's wide eyes the same.

Jack felt odd, but in a way he couldn't explain as being anything more than completely _enticed_. His stomach began to warm itself from the inside out with every bit of the dessert that tumbled down into it, and the sensation of a rigid stir in him further below caught his attention.

Every time he looked at Eva and saw the deep-sea blue of her eyes shadowing his sight, he felt a rougher pinch in his breeches. At first he thought it was his mind alone, playing mad tricks on him to get her into bed at long last. But tasting the wild lime spice on his tongue and lips, he had the urge to only eat more of it before finally consuming her alone.

His pants grew tighter as he sat there, biting his lip against the unexpected burn and itch of his position, as he twisted his eyes and brow from one end of the table and room to the other. Teague looked at him with a strange eye, but Jack could only respond with a short wave of his hand. Gibbs too noticed something abruptly feral in Jack's eyes, but let it be what he imagined it was, the woman sitting so close to him, whispering in his ear from time to time.

Eva leaned closer in, snaring his black lit eyes in her net.

"Jack," she purred coolly against his fiery skin. "You look tired."

He felt many things, but tire wasn't one of them and he grew instantly suspicious of her untamed grin.

"Hasn't it been a _long…hard_, day for you?"

The _hardness_ was there, but it merely throbbed at the seam of his pants with the way she spun her words to dizzy him. He felt himself spinning downward, ready to crash into an imaginary mountain or ocean the way she stared at him. He felt his hands grow firm on the edge of the table, ready to make a run for it, from the demons he felt covering him all over.

Eva opened her mouth once more and his grip was reaffirmed to capacity.

"Perhaps you should go and lay d--"

Jack jumped up from his chair in interruption of the request, tumbling backwards as he tripped over it and ran from the dining room to hide his tight pants from the crowd. Eva giggled, watching him stumble around almost half drunk and drawn to minimum control of his body elsewhere, as only she and Elizabeth knew. Little Jack laughed out loud at his Uncle's antics and Teague's brow crossed with the same scene.

"Eva," he stammered in wonder as she thrust her face back. "Ave' ye finally driven me boy to the brink of utter madness?"

She smiled, with a turn of her eyes to Elizabeth first, then back to Teague.

"I have no idea what his problem is."

Eva bit her lip and stood from her chair.

"Maybe I should go and check on him."

Elizabeth shook her head, knowing all too well of what the 'checking' would entail, while Teague waved her off with warning.

"Watch yerself if e's got a pistol with that head o' his."

With a short laugh she took off out of the dining room and down the long hallway. She could hear little Jack's incessant giggling all the way to _big_ Jack's room, and it made her step liven itself into a skip as she fell right in front of the door. She pressed her ear against it for moment to hear the demanding patter of boots across the floor within, grinned to herself, and threw open the door to reveal exactly what she thought. Jack paced around, shaking his head in what looked like pain, until he looked up to see her there and stormed at her.

"_You_…" he growled, grabbing her waist and pinning her against the slammed door harshly.

She wasn't afraid, but something remotely close to it filled her as she stared up at him. His breath was hot and desperate all over her, as his hands pushed on the door harder beside her head.

"Wot' in damnation did you do t' me woman?!"

Eva said nothing and watched as his mouth watered and moved closer to hers out of both instinct and her cooking skills.

"Tell me what was in that pie, _Eva_…"

The way he groaned her name at last made her shiver under him, especially so when she felt his body press fully into her, and the tightness of his pants, the uncommonly tough hardness at that, grazed the leg of her dress.

"Limes." She replied innocently, frustrating him even more.

"Damnit, wot' else?"

"Eggs and milk…"

He pressed his forehead to hers, obviously in pain and distress down below, and asked one last time in a low, hushed desperation.

"Wot' did _this_…" he brushed his hardness further against her as she gasped for air "…t' me?"

She grinned wickedly and wrapped her arms around his waist, leaning up to whisper in his ear.

"_Muira puama_."

"Huh?"

"It's a plant native to South America. A sexual tonic…"

He growled against the itch he felt when she spoke of such a thing and turned her away from the door to walk her slowly backwards to the bed.

"Fix this now, you gypsy _witch_ woman!"

"But Jack…" she teased, pulling him along by the waist of his pants and bringing her mouth to his "…nothing appears to be _broken_…" He felt her reach into his pants and draw her hand around the burning, unimaginably tight sizeable flesh. Jack moaned out as he fell breathlessly atop her in the bed.

Together, almost instantly, they slid further onto the mattress and into the mountain of sheets. Eva fumbled to pull away Jack's shirt as he worked with the ties of her short, bohemian dress. His nails dug into the flesh on her exposed thighs from under the skirt, trying to ignore the indescribable throbbing of his cock as he ground it into her.

"Hurry up!" He shouted as she laughed and untied his breeches to pull the swollen, angered shaft out.

Jack sighed heavily and fell harder against her. She gave him a moment to breathe while she traced along all of the twitching muscles and scars she felt on his smooth, burning back. He tried to ignore the way her trailing fingers felt, like a dream he'd had too many times.

"I've gotten my revenge. Now take yours, Jack." She whispered sweetly in his ear.

He drew up on his elbows over top of her, and slowly lifted her dress the rest of the way off. Her skin was like honey against his, melting every bit of exposed flesh that was already on fire. He widened her legs and pressed the head of his absurdly large cock against her wet heat. Eva's eyes rolled back as she bit her lip, expecting it to hurt just by the size of him she'd seen.

He let the pause cover her for moment as he suckled both of her breasts, and then when he felt her thighs press richly against his hips, he thrust long and deep within her, without any warning at all. Eva yelped at the intrusion of thick flesh, all of her natural barriers of pain broken down to nothing but instant pleasure, in a way she'd never experienced before with any man. Her fingers pinched the hard muscles in his arms as he worked his way even farther inside of her, holding her hips slightly off the bed for better entrance. He grunted when he found himself at a comfortable, but still burning fit inside.

"_Eva_…" he pleaded into her ear as she held him close.

"Jack."

"You're going t' be the death o' me."

She smirked and moved her lips up to whisper back in his ear, "Not tonight, I promise." And then with a buck of her hips higher towards his, he knew what she was after, and what he quite obviously needed done.

He positioned himself a little better and held her waist at the mattress as he slowly moved out to the tip, and then forced himself back within her, twice as hard as the first time. She slid on the bed with him, hooked completely around him, with her bare heels digging into his lower back and her arms weaved firmly through his long dreads.

His body stung as he moved in and out of her, thrusting for what felt like survival and kissing every bit of her exposed neck and breasts and face for the sheer joy of it. The combination of which, was something far more nightmarish than even death had been for him. Her hips rose to meet his every single time he drove inside of her, and it made him feel all the more complete with the burn that tingled from one inch of him to the oversized next.

Eva had never known anything more profound than Jack being inside of her, and it was something she had felt she knew from the moment she first, _officially_ met him. It was like he was inside of her head, marking his territory upon her every desire and wish, and then acting them out along her body. When she begged for him to go faster in her mind, he did. When she thought of how much she wanted him to kiss her, he deepened the pace of his thrusts and held her face to consume her mouth with his scorching lips and tongue.

"Ahh…Jack…"

She panted for him and pulled on his hair, making him move even quicker.

"God Eva…"

He held her closer to him and shut his eyes against the urgency as she squeezed her thighs to his body harder. Jack held the back of her head and felt the rush of blood pumping inside of their bodies as everything began to clench down roughly around his sensitive and still pumping flesh. The more her nails ground into the skin on his arms and back, the closer he felt her coming to the blinking end of it all, and the smoother he made his movements into her.

He ran his fingers through her long hair across the bed, sliding in fluidly over her entire, perfectly formed, damp mold, until he reached down to rub at the throbbing sensation of her clit. Eva gasped desperately against his mouth as he felt her muscles instantly contract and pull his cock as far within her as they could. He felt the discharge of the most glorious heat he'd ever known washing over him. Eva released everything to him, screaming out his name in his ear, holding onto him for dear life as he propelled with a sting against her secret spot. He turned the pad of his thumb over her pulsing bud a time longer to ease her as he went on with his movements.

Jack whispered her name with two more powerful grunts, holding her up against him with the same determination as she clung to him, meeting his own match with relief a moment later. He filled her with his warm, sticky seed as she felt herself drowning in an imaginary ocean and fell back to the mattress under him. Jack too fell after a final groan, half on top of her with his arms spread wide across her body.

They lay there helpless for a few long minutes, catching a proper breathing pattern and reveling in the feel of each other's skin to theirs. Eva counted the cracks in the ceiling as the night slowly crept across it, and Jack found solace with his head turned from hers on the bed, in simply lying with his eyes shut. It wasn't until he felt her trying to wriggle away from under him, that he opened them and quickly flipped his face to hers.

"Done with me already, lass?"

Eva's eyes planted upon his teasingly. "Not unless you're done with _me_."

He moved to cover her body again, pinning her wrists down to the bed and sweeping his lips across hers as his quickly renewed hardness settled between her legs.

"Does _that_ feel like m'done with ye?"

She shook her head with a low giggle.

"Say the word, an' I'm ready t' go again, darling."

"What's the word, Jack?"

He snatched her mouth in a quick, searing kiss only to draw back and whisper, "_Freedom_."

Eva smiled against his lips, biting down on the bottom one just to add to the madness already reeling inside of his head, and then released it to wickedly feed his word back to him.

"_Freedom_, then."

* * *

All rational count, of course, was lost in the matter. Jack swore until the end of his days that it was eleven times, while Eva insisted it couldn't have possibly been less than fifteen that first night together. The only thing they came to agree upon when they rested, was that it was the best either of them had known, which was complimentary both ways considering their closely matched histories in the matter.

They lay together backwards, with their heads at the foot of the bed, and their feet and legs tangled toward the headboard. They laughed and kissed for endless hours, making love in between the dozens of stories Jack delighted in telling her, the ones he'd brought all the way back to the Cove, _just_ for her.

He had Eva wrapped up as deeply as he could keep her to him, with a sheet half draped across their midsections alone. Her eyes were turned from his, but it gave him perfect access to the groove of her neck and shoulder, where he made an invisible trail of kisses for what felt like a lifetime rolling by without them. Eva stared ahead, melting her back into an arch against his chest as she watched the stars blinking from between the curtains at the window. Her head was a rush of a million different questions, but she didn't know where to begin.

Luckily, Jack helped her unknowingly.

"So your fit o' vengeance…where did that spurn from I wonder?" He asked as he nibbled at her ear.

She sighed softly and weaved her fingers through his. "It was the result of your suspicious and uncanny knowledge of things."

"Wot' things?"

"_Things_; matters involving the hearts of cotton merchants."

"Do tell…" he purred with a husky laugh, leaning over to catch a corner spark of her blue eyes in the moonlight, "…what did Sir Bryant reveal to his island pet this afternoon?"

"He made very clear his intentions."

"Which are?"

She grumbled to begin, just hating the thought of the answer alone.

"He has dreamt plans of whisking me away to London, locking me in a fine tower of a house and allowing me to comfort myself with finery and screaming children. Nothing more."

The tone in Eva's voice stopped Jack from smiling at the prior teasing, and instead he let his chin fall to her shoulder as he listened intently to the pain he heard between words.

"He refuses to see to my being at sea, _ever_, fearing for my life more than he does my unhappiness; and all of this from a man who risks his own life travelling to and fro with sheep's hair for business, every month."

She huffed and pressed her hidden cheek harder onto Jack's arm beneath her, trying to stop the tears that she knew would come if she didn't catch them ahead of time. She felt Jack's body grow softer against hers, but he didn't move or waver from her at all.

"Did e' ask for your hand yet?"

She shook her head with a no, "But he will. _Soon_. I know it."

"Ye don't ave' to say yes, Eva."

"You sound like Lizzie."

He smirked and kissed her shoulder, "Smart woman, like I know you are. Ye ave' the choice."

"I do, but I've thought about it the whole of the evening, and have come to realize that I risk not only my own values with it."

"Wot' can you mean?"

"I mean…" she began, finally turning over in his arms as he held her cheek in his palm and stroked through her long curls, "…Daniel is a cotton merchant with an established trade here now. Shipwreck has never seen so much gold before, according to your father. If I refuse him, he will see fit to punish this place and its people, I know it. He's a man of the East India Company. I am aware of how they operate, Jack."

He sighed and brushed her cheek as he watched her dwell into pure exhaustion. Jack knew she was right, for he too understood how they operated, and he saw that she had thought about this seriously.

"I wish ye wouldn't discount _your_ hopes for _his_ aspirations of a proper family, though."

"What other choice do I have at this point?"

Of course, he had no answer for her. So she answered for him.

"There isn't one. Besides, you shouldn't worry about something you won't be here to see anyway. You'll be leaving again by morning and all else will be of little concern to the life you lead."

She hit him hard and quick with that one, and curled further into his arms without another word on the matter. Eva rested against him and eventually fell asleep, as deeply as he'd ever seen anyone fall asleep before. With the irony being, that he never shut his eyes the rest of the night. It was impossible to even try accomplishing such a thing, when his head was a mess of silent scheming and desperate thoughts of the girl, a _woman_ who had finally done him in to a point of uncharted return.


	15. A Pirate's Scheme

****

* * *

A Pirate's Scheme

* * *

_Sometimes in our life  
We get to where we wonder if  
The long road that we're on  
Is heading in the same direction._

_When it comes to you and me  
We're right where I know we should be._

-**I Told You So** by Keith Urban-

* * *

Jack stayed up through the entire night, focused on nothing but his concern for Eva's well being, for the marriage and life she was willing to take as sacrifice for the success of the whole damned island. He couldn't believe what he was hearing when she'd said it, but after a while of sitting up and watching her sleep, of developing plans of failure non-stop in his brain, he understood why she had. Eva had fallen for this place and let Shipwreck become her new home, with his father and Elizabeth and little Jack and everyone else attached to it. She was fighting for the place and the people she loved; the one thing he had always had a hard time doing.

He was profoundly inspired by it though, for the first time in too many long years of his life. And it was as he lain watching the black trickle out of the sky and slowly turn blue, that he felt a pinch of something rough under the pillows and dug it out. It was a book, a gifted book nonetheless, and one that proved Eva had taken to his room at the Cove even before he'd returned.

He smiled over at her peaceful form and began flipping through the pages she had marked for certain emphasis. There were details about Grace O' Malley's crew, and ship, and the treasure she had accumulated. He'd never taken the time to read through it when the book had been in the shelves of his cabin onboard, but now he was drawn in. When he got to about halfway through the large book, he came across a page heavy with something holding its place. He opened it wide to see a folded, aged piece of parchment. His brow twisted as he unfolded it and found a well etched (and used for that matter) map.

"Bloody ell'…" he whispered as he traced over the details of it.

A prominent red dotted line was painted in a route from Africa all the way to the Northern coast of Ireland. And an X was plotted not on the mainland of the country, but on a small island marked beside it, settled in the midst of Galway Bay. In the low candlelight of the room, he could just make out the cursive name, _Clare Island, _and ran his index finger across it. His eyes darted from the map to Eva's silent, completely unconscious face, thinking and plotting very differently, and very fast. He returned to a moment in a study for a clue.

"_Evangeline is a Greek name...means __**'good message' **__Jacky."_

"_Marley's, old __**Irish**__…" _

"_Er' hair is dark, __**black**__ almost…An' her eyes…they're__** blue**__; blue like an ocean I've ne'er seen before."_

Certain words exchanged between him and Teague, all of nineteen months before, passed over his head in a flurry of short, hidden facts; things he should have seen a long time ago. It went on for another hour at least, as he rushed to consume information from the book and pinpoint details of his own accord and concern.

Before the sky was entirely blue and at least an hour ahead of the rising sun, Jack jumped from the bed and began to dress, never letting his eyes fall from the creature without a clue; his '_good, black haired, blue-eyed Irish message'_ wrapped up tight in his sheets.

* * *

_Eva sat wound up in nothing but a blanket from the bed, looking over charts and plots that Jack had made since he'd been gone, of places and treasures and oceans yet to be fully mapped out. Her fingers trailed along, pointing out locations to her unconscious mind, things she wanted to see for herself. She kept at it too, until she heard a soft voice whisper in her ear, as if it floated on an imaginary cloud over her head._

"_Pick a place, anywhere ye want t' go."_

_She smiled, because the voice sounded all too perfect to her, and because it could only belong to one man. Her hand left the charts as she slowly turned under the man's arms and brought her eyes up to meet the face she'd waited to see all through the night. _

"_I missed you so much while I was asleep, Jack."_

_When her eyes opened fully to catch the gaze of the man who spoke to her though, she gasped in horror. It wasn't Jack at all. It was Daniel Bryant and he quickly swept down over her, his mouth upon hers roughly and his body forcing hers to do things she didn't want. She tried to scream out, but it was as if her voice was made of nothing but blank wind and no sound came of it. She tried to get away, but his hold was too tight, like chains on her wrists, holding her back from everything free. _

"_Marry me…" he chanted as he worked his way across her bare form with dangerous thrusts, "Marry me, Evangeline…be my wife…"_

_Her heart pounded and she found herself wriggling against his fingers until she could hear her voice again and it sounded real and right. _

"Stop, no! Jack, help me!"

Her eyes widened quickly, forced open by the heat of something different than Daniel's breath on her face, something warmer and peaceful; the sun.

She breathed in a deep, nightmarish panic as she looked around at her surroundings, the ones that weren't what she had fallen asleep to. Because of her state of shock from sleep, it took her twice as long to establish what the room was, with trunks and chests and low burning candles everywhere. Her hazy eyes caught sight of a large desk, her body lost in the massive bed, and then, the one thing she couldn't deny the truth of. Her nose took in the combined scent of burning rum and an ocean gust and she fell back against the mattress shouting.

"No…no…" She threw the pillow over her head and yelled into it with a private muffle. "No!"

Eva attempted to calm herself with the fluffy, feathered pillow still keeping her from fresh oxygen. She let thoughts race through her mind, trying to determine what she would find if she got up from the bed and looked out of the windows of the cabin. Would she find a port outside of Teague's house, a mere sign that Jack had somehow gotten her so drunk or so seduced that she hadn't notice him lure her to his ship for the rest of the night? Or would she find open water and countless miles of nothing but his cruel idea to whisk her away from something she was sure she had under perfect control?

"_Please say we're docked…please...please say we're docked…"_

She let the wishes reel in her mind as she very slowly dropped the pillow from her eyes and glanced across the room through the huge plated windows. She saw water, of course, but wasn't sure how much of it there was, so she eased herself down from the bed, wrapped in a sheet and walked towards it, still prying for a dock view. What she found though, as her bare feet came into contact with scattered maps on the floor and as her heart beat wildly with confusion, was trackless, unwarranted, oceanic triumph on the high noon South China Sea.

Eva's eyes grew fierce as she moved her glare from the windows to the doors of the cabin. She could see shadows of movement outside and drew her lip up in a soft growl as she began searching out clothes on the floor. None of them were hers from the looks of it, but they fit loose and comfortable and smelled like the man she was ready to send right back to the locker Lizzie had so granted him before.

Once dressed, she stormed barefoot across the room and pulled open the cabin doors to rush out into the twice brighter daylight. A few men perked to look up at her, some of them remembering her face and others interested in only what they had seen Jack carry aboard in a sheet hours before. Eva nodded to a few of them, but felt her anger confusing them, so she ignored the rest until she had come about enough to face up at the wheel past the glow of the sun. Holding her hands above her eyes as a shield, she saw only Gibbs and Mr. Cotton with his parrot.

Gibbs smiled down at her and pointed just over her head, but it was a mute point when she felt something warmer than the sun blow through her hair.

"Welcome back, Elijah Marley."

She rolled her eyes and forced a worse scowl as her hands drew into small fists at her side.

"See ye found some decent garments. Mine no doubt."

Eva spun around in a flash and raised her hand to strike Jack, to which he instantly caught it, expecting no less and ready for far worse at all times with women.

"Ah." He stopped her, holding her wrist soft overhead. "The time for _revenge_ is o'er for now, love."

"You are impossibly maddening, do you know that?!"

Her screech flew over the ship as the men turned to watch the scene with mops and ropes in hand. Jack stayed peaceable with a wiry grin, despite her anger.

"Ye seemed t' take to my madness last night, Eva."

He lifted his brow seductively, but it made her even crazier with anger and she ripped her arm away from him, shouting.

"And _one_ night is all your going to get from me, Jack!"

The men fell into a flurry of hushed laughter across the deck.

"You are the most _selfish_, _aggravating_, _daft_ human being on the planet!"

"Are ye done yet?"

"Never."

Her eyes caught into a blue flame, the one he admired so much, and she stamped her foot with flailing arms, shouting out more of her made-up statements of hatred.

"You've ruined everything with your greed and filthy disposition to relieve yourself nightly…the Cove is going to suffer because you won't just let me marry a man that isn't _you_…I can't believe you bundled me away on this ship again… in the middle of the night and drunk…me, a _woman_ upon your vessel, you_ foolish_ man…"

While she went on and on loudly, he lunged forward and quickly threw her over his shoulder, her head bobbing against his back with her hair falling wildly, as she kicked her legs together in front of him, all the way back into the cabin. The men laughed and cheered her on a little, until her final words and screaming were majorly muted by the slamming of the cabin door.

"…you've no doubt granted fair curse upon these men!"

It was the last they heard of her. A moment later the two of them were safe within the walls of his room, and Jack slowly dropped her down to her bare feet, raising his head to begin a command of her.

"Now listen Ev--"

But before he could get her name out, or anything else for that matter, a harsh, warm palm swept across his right cheek with a fierceness he should have expected. His jaw flew off to the side from her hand as she stood a whole foot shorter than him and an easy fifty pounds lighter, but holding her own. The slap was the most dominating he'd ever felt. And that was saying a lot from him.

"Don't you dare, Jack."

Her anger was apparent, in his ears, on his face, and he stood tall again above her, simply clinging to her gaze, knowing just by how her eyes were flickering that Eva was far from done.

"I can't believe you thought this was a good idea. I told you not to bother with me. Why didn't you listen?"

"Is it wrong for me t' ave' wanted to help ye?"

"Yes. I told you it wasn't your concern. And now you've made it your own."

"Eva I--"

For no real apparent reason, he felt her hand strike him without warning a second time. His face flung back for a moment as he winced away the short pain and breathed in much needed oxygen, then he moved back to her eyes, confused.

"Wot' was that one for?"

She threw her finger out at him in a point as he attempted to duck the movement.

"That was for bringing me aboard this ship without clothes…" she growled as he tried not to laugh.

"There's a whole trunk o' yer things in the corner."

Her finger remained pointed at his face while she glanced back for a moment to see the chest from her room at Teague's, one that housed most of the books and trinkets she had collected during her stay.

"Are there clothes in it?" She asked angrily.

"Lizzie packed it."

Her face fell back to him, suddenly somber. "Elizabeth knows I'm here?"

He nodded nervously, still ducking under her raised finger until she calmly lowered it and walked away. She fell to sadness that he'd never seen her in before, and she was suddenly like a child lost in the world for some reason, even though she must have known she was safe with him.

"I couldn't let ye marry into misery, not for th' benefit of an entire town. That's absurd."

"Is it really, Jack?" She asked solemnly over her shoulder as she slumped down to sit on the large trunk of her things. "Is it really absurd, when I know what's to eventually come of your plan?"

"Do you even know wot' my plan is?"

She looked up at him, her eyes growing heated again with concern.

"You're taking me captive again, from the looks of it. To keep me from Daniel."

"In a way…" he slowly walked toward her, then past as he fumbled near his charting table, scrambling under loose paper until he grabbed at her book. He tore the map from inside of it and walked back to Eva, dropping it in her lap. "…We're going after your treasure, Eva."

She looked at the parchment, shocked, and worrisome as a hundred different images flew through her mind. Of course, Jack couldn't see her eyes burning with devastating fury while her face was hidden toward the map.

"I brought ye along because you know all bout' it. We find th' grand thing, worth wot' must be five times th' gold Mr. Bryant's cotton can make for Shipwreck, an' you won't have t' worry about marrying him."

Her first crumbled the map, and he stepped back a little, worried.

"You idiot."

She murmured at him, rising too and reaching out for a bottle sitting in her side view on the table. Jack slowly inched away more with his hands drawn toward the doors.

"Easy, darling."

The bottle was firm in her grasp as she slowly walked him backwards.

"I can't believe you this time. _This_…" she shook the map at him, "…this is how you're planning to save me. And from what? Marriage…childbirth…_London_?"

"Unhappiness." He stated with flat reverberation of her words from the night before, and one more step back, reaching behind him for the doorknob.

"Well if only you had thought to ask me for finer details in the matter then, Jack."

She shook her head, still holding the bottle up at him.

"Meaning wot'?"

He pulled the door open slightly enough to sneak his leg through as she came closer.

"Daniel's father and he may be nothing more than cotton merchants, but his uncle…_Lord Henry Compton_…is an admiral in the British Royal Navy."

Jack felt his throat closing up as he slipped further out of the door with Eva's snapping speech.

"And his cousin, _Paul Compton_, operates a fleet of the East India Company, the same one that saw to William Turner's death. Don't you see, you've condemned us all!"

He ducked his head out the second she thrust the bottle toward him, hearing it crash into a million pieces with the slamming oak of the door. Jack rested against the outside of the door, trying to pull his jaw back into place again from where her palm had twice left it unhinged, and looked up to see a dozen men standing around with gawking mouths. From inside of the cabin, he heard Eva's body as she slumped down to the floor and began to cry, and he forced himself to ignore it and move away, shouting out orders.

"Back t' work ye filthy ninnies! Step to!"

He brushed them all off to duties again, turning to see the rum stain on the glass of the cabin doors, as it trickled down with the faint sound of her tears. It nearly killed him to stand there and listen, and so he urged his feet to follow his mind and move to the mental construction the helm would provide instead.

* * *

The day passed by with vigor, strong work and ferrying waves, until Jack felt himself tilt from the effects of the sun on his spirited head. He let Cotton take over for the rest of the night ahead, and made his way down the steps, turning in toward his cabin doors. He was afraid of what he would find, only because he never knew what quite to expect from Eva.

He wondered how long she had cried for, or if she'd cried herself to death. He wondered for a hasty moment at the door, whether she'd found a way to jump ship and head back for the Cove somehow, knowing it wasn't entirely beyond her realm of capability. He wondered last, if she had come even close to forgiving him yet, or if she had just grown angrier through the lonely afternoon.

Jack breathed in deep to sober himself up better and pushed open one of the doors, sliding inside. There were no broken windows of escape and the shattered glass from the bottle had been cleaned up. Yet before him on the floor in the center of the room, with two empty, unbroken bottles of rum rolling on their sides, and her twisted form in deep sleep, was his return captive.

"Ye ne'er fail t' make a sight of yerself, love."

He sighed with a short laugh and stepped in quietly to lift her up from the floor and carry her to the bed. She was light from releasing everything she drank in tears, and he draped her into the middle of the mattress, drawing the blankets up over her. She stirred a little, half conscious of what was happening, and then pried a single, blinded eye open up at him.

"I'm still mad at you." She murmured in tire.

He grinned proudly. "Oh, grand," and then turned away for his desk, when her voice stopped him again.

"But--" Jack glanced back as he pulled his coat off. "I'm glad to be back on the sea with you, Jack."

In later years, he might have claimed that that statement from her melted every bit of his blackness, but at the moment it was merely intriguing to him as he stepped back to the bed. Jack brushed her hair out of her eyes and leaned down to leave a soft kiss on her forehead, forcing her into a harsher peace.

"You need t' sleep th' rum off."

She looked at him with sparkling, strangely refreshed eyes and smiled before finally passing out again.

"Good girl."

He breathed a laugh against her nose and then went to his charting table. He watched her aimlessly for hours, plotting, drinking, and analyzing the way she turned and moaned during sleep. After a while, when he couldn't deny his own tire anymore or the need to be close to her, he crawled into bed too. Rolling to his back, he pulled her sleeping form across to cover his chest, resting her head on his heart. Jack held her as close to him as he could get her, studying Eva's breathing pattern for a long time before finally allowing himself to drift down too, wordlessly apologizing to her beforehand.


	16. Swimming in Sunshine

**

* * *

**

Swimming in Sunshine

* * *

_I looked up, there she stood  
I say, didn't look so great, I say you look good.  
Aw she took her hand, ran it up my thigh  
And said, Captain you ready for the wild ride?_

_I was crawling cross' the floor, I was trying to leave  
When I felt something tugging what was left of my sleeve  
I heard a little voice with a gold plated vibe  
Say I bought a ticket for the wild ride._

-**Wild Ride** by Kenny Chesney & Joe Walsh-

* * *

Eva forgave Jack for his rash decision as easily as any other woman would, as easily as she _imagined_ any woman would at least. She didn't know what to expect when Daniel finally lost hope enough to start a search. Jack had insisted that both Teague and Elizabeth had given their full promise to not say a word in the matter and remain in shock when the rest of the island did. And because she'd come to know the both of them as well, she knew their confidence was sacred in the matter. But still, the nervousness lingered.

For a half a week, they bartered time for safety by sailing aimlessly throughout the islands of the South China Sea, stopping here and there at markets and stock towns, trying to get a feel for what the East India's business was and whether any of their marked ships seemed to be on the lookout for a beautiful dark haired woman with sparkling blue eyes and piratical company. Thankfully, none of them had been assigned to the task yet and it helped Eva breathe a little easier as they journeyed further.

They hadn't set a sure plot for Grace O' Malley's treasure, and it was just as well. Eva assumed Jack was holding out in light of the seriousness of his having 'kidnapped her'. And Jack assumed that Eva would hit him or worse, jump ship, if he even brought it up. So he waited, but it was continuously burning at the back of his mind. Whenever _she_ wasn't that is.

By mid-week, as they slipped into the darkened waters of Thailand's outer miles, the bed in Jack's cabin had become little more than a distraction for the both of them. Whenever he wasn't sailing, he was _charting courses_ with her through the sheets. And whenever Eva wasn't helping on deck or sewing together her bohemian fashions with the silks he'd found for her in India on his last trip, she was begging him to do nothing but rip her clothes off and teach her how best to _pillage_.

* * *

On this coming morning, somewhere in his head, Jack was lost on a rolling sea, alone and without anyone to care what happened to him or the ship. He was fighting the storm, his grip firm on the wheel, his mind secured to the sails in the gusting, wet wind and the lighting that struck at the dipping bow every few minutes. Jack was in a powerful place, one he'd been a million times in or out of his dreams, but this time, he felt the final magnitude of his power. Nothing could pull him down from it; nothing, except that which he couldn't have planned for.

He tried to stir awake from the place he thought he had been, and felt the warm sun on his face dragging him from there harshly. With a short moan, he attempted to stretch, but found it undoable. When his eyes shot open to search for what felt like missing arms, he found something unbearably intriguing.

Bound by well knotted rope to the headboard, were each one of his struggling wrists. He pried his eyes open further, pulling at the rope and trying to find Eva.

"Well done, pixie…" he chuckled, tugging to slither his wrists free from impossibility. "…won't ye give ole' Jack another?"

He spoke too soon and far too flighty. For not a second passed, before he suddenly felt a raging storm again, but this time, down below in the trenches of a sea he couldn't quite _see_. He groaned out with a belt of laughter as he felt the tactfully warm fingertips of a hidden being sliding along his hardened flesh beneath the blankets. Throwing his head back to the pillows, Jack let his legs twitch as they may, gripping to the body he felt between his thighs and out of sight.

Short of breath he attempted to mask what she was doing with words. "Do tell where ye learned t' tie a…" he felt a smooth squeeze around his stifling shaft and urged with more growling laughter before finding oxygen enough to finish, "…a reef _knot_…like this?"

Upon lifting his head again finally, he saw the sheets rustle from where his desperation clung, and a mess of dark curls popped out. Eva turned her face up with a bite of her lip to hide the smile she drew, and Jack nearly lost control at the way her blue eyes sparkled in the most unlikely of positions and places. Her hand was holding his cock, her mouth as near to it as he could have possibly fantasized, and all of it real for once.

"Your father taught me." She finally replied with a wicked grin and raised brow.

Jack's eyes rolled back in his head to the pillow once more. "Aha…" he breathed, feeling her fingers weaving over his sensitive, moist tip, "…for a ship no doubt."

"Of course. What else for but that?"

Her teasing added fury to the fire in him and he bucked his hips as he felt her breath coming in closer to his pleading arousal. One she herself had surely produced during his sleep.

"Eva, I hope there's a result t' come o' this mockery."

"Always, Jack."

And with her final words, he raised his head just enough to watch her tender and wet lips descend upon his solid flesh. Her eyes were wide and glittering in the early sunlight, focused on his hazy black ones the entire time she consumed him. Her tongue matched the motion of her lips downward, as she tasted the underside of him, making his eyes nearly jump from their sockets. When she could tell he was growing far too content with the sensation, she dangerously pulled away and smiled up at him.

"Am I getting close to the desired conclusion, Captain?"

He grunted in agony and tried to reach out for her head, to put it back in place, but she just sat over him laughing. He felt like he was being scorned by the devil himself, or _herself._ Jack forced open his eyes and looked up at her angrily.

"Find this funny do ye?"

She nodded with a tilt of her eyes closer at him.

"And…" he shook his wrists in the rope with a howl.

Eva hovered across his chest, moving her hands up to his bare neck slowly, with her fingers doing a dance on his sweating skin. As she did this, she also moved her face back down to the place he wanted it, letting her tongue lap at the raised, begging tip of his cock again. Jack shivered under her, the sensation of her fingertips on his peaked nipples and her tongue swirling across the other peak, were nearly too much. What did him in though, was the way she watched his every move with those wide sapphires.

"I've died an' gone t'…." he couldn't get it out as Eva quickly snatched hold of his tender sacs even further down below and pinched them. A gasp eclipsed from between his lips and she smiled, returning her hand to where the other one was at his chest.

Jack's hands stretched and twisted within the ropes, knocking against the headboard of the bed in a mode of desperation as she filled her mouth with all of him again suddenly, drowning his head and body in one sweep. Her fingernails too instantly dug into the heated skin on his chest, as she pulled them down in an animalistic scrape across his stomach, leaving behind a route of marks.

"Jesus, Eva!"

He shouted out as her nails landed in the softened black hairs trailing down his navel, and as his cock moved from her throat to her lips and back three times fast, at least. Jack's thighs clutched to her legs and waist between them, warning her without the words he couldn't find anyway. She moved fast against him anyway though, grazing the softly ribbed skin underneath his shaft with her teeth and taking another firm hold of the sacs that made his howl.

Thrusting his waist up at her, she swallowed all of him again, practically choking at his urgency but not necessarily minding. He even swore he saw her smile hellishly when he opened his eyes to find the heinous flame in hers. They burned bright, like fire on the widest ocean, luring him into her with every stroke of her tongue or press of his cock's head into her throat. And when he had finally found himself lost inside of her eyes, and had forgotten to focus on anything else, he was washed clean of his misery with a heady bite where it hurt most.

"…Oh dear God…"

He gritted his teeth with a boiling groan, forcing himself to ignore her glare and let wave after wave of insistent release cover him, while Eva's mouth never stopped moving. Her hands smoothed over the trembling skin of his stomach when she finally moved her mouth away, easing him into a congenial relaxation on the sheets. She slid up his body, bound in nothing but the sweetest, softest skin, and laid down upon him with her nipples tickling his chest and her ear to his heart, counting the beats it took to steady him again.

Jack lips and nose were pressed into her hair, inhaling the scent as tonic for what she'd done to him. His wrists were still knotted up and his fingers growing blue from lack of blood, but he paid it little attention in comparison to the way her curves felt against his tingling skin.

"Not a bad way t' wake up." He finally joked, hearing her giggle on his chest.

Her response though wasn't something he would have chosen for himself. Eva rose after a few lingering moments and slid down from his body to the floor, covering him modestly with the sheet before turning to throw on one of her dresses and head for the door.

"Uhh…darlin'?"

Jack's brow was inquisitive and almost petrified when she spun back slightly with a mouth-watering grin. He rattled his knuckles in the rope against the headboard at her.

"Plannin' on letting me go first?"

She shook her head and reached behind her seductively for the doorknob.

"Eva…" he warned but to no avail.

She twisted it and pulled the door free from the frame, ready to disappear with nothing but a smile. A charming scowl came to his face as he looked deep into her eyes from the other side of the cabin, still testing her actions.

"Don't leave this room. Come back here an' untie me!"

Eva bit her lip hard to keep from laughing and just stared at him before whispering and sliding out of the doorway.

"I've heard you can escape chains and the noose Jack…this should be quite an _effortless _task."

And at that, he watched her go, throwing his head down with a loud shout of somewhat satisfied frustration.

"Wretched devil woman!"

Outside on the deck as she closed the door behind her giggling, Eva glanced up to see a handful of working men stop what they were doing to look at her curiously, hearing the shouting of their Captain from inside.

"Not to worry, he's quite alright, merely a bit _shaken_ from a _horrid_ dream."

She smiled and walked toward them.

"Now…" her eyes darted over the ship, wanting nothing more than to actually help on it this day, to test all of her gained knowledge and training from the _Harlot_ on Jack's precious _Pearl_. The men knew this too, from Gibbs and Jack's talk of how ferociously she sailed. "…would someone like to show me what I can do for work?"

A half dozen men jumped at her attention and heels, offering out ropes and buckets and swords of all kinds, leading her about the ship as if she were a prize of theirs, teaching her all about the fine vessel they manned each day. Eva was surprised they took to her so well this round, since before, they had eyed _Elijah_ as nothing short of a meal or mark.

The two funny men she had come to shortly know before as Pintel and Ragetti, held each one of her arms, strolling along in argument.

"We can show ye ow' t' climb th rigging, Captain Marley."

She giggled at the title, one Jack must have induced aboard the ship.

Ragetti chanted back, "Aye…let's show er' how t' wrestle th' sails!"

"Wrestle the sails?"

Eva gave a questioning glance to each of them as they nodded excitedly, and then up into the sails and rigging, curious as ever.

"Very well then. Let the lesson commence."

* * *

After forty minutes of struggle in the ropes and another twenty just to ease the frustration of getting out of them, Jack dressed, ate some of the food that was laid out from the night before and pulled his hat down on his head before storming out of the cabin. His search was immediate, with a toss of his face back and forth across the deck, looking for a set of bared, dainty ankles. But of course, there were none and he growled under his breath.

At a distance he could hear chuckling and looked up to see a surrounding huddle of his men, all of them glancing into the sunlight, with pointed fingers and hushed interest. Jack tightened his lips in a purse when he too lifted his eyes into the sky, finding a single body tangled within the rigging, and unable to determine who it was, he stumbled in closer to the group, listening as he approached in secrecy from behind them.

"Smooth legs, like honey…those fings' would be madness wrapped round' ye."

"Ha, ain't that th' truth o' the matter. Could burn a man, fer certain."

A bunch of them nodded and Jack shook his head, almost disturbed, until he shot a glare back up into the sun. This time, the figure was notable, the ankles soft and glowing like honey indeed, silk in the sky. A snarl came to his upper lip as he continued taking in the men's comments in front of him and watching Eva dance around in the rigging.

"Grip those hips fer a ole' night an' see if ye can walk th' next day, ay?"

"Yeah, yeah…an' er' breasts too. Lord above. They be right perfect fer a good taste."

"Ah, th' finer things in life, mates."

Another set of them sighed loudly, focused the way Jack was, but he eventually digressed to turn his attention back to his ignorant, lazy, preoccupied crew. And before they could dive any further into their discussion about what they could just make out flying beneath Eva's wind-blown skirt, Jack stepped in.

"Ahem…" He coughed loudly with a grunt that made them all shift around in shock.

"Cap'n!" Pintel shouted with a salute, followed by a half dozen more around him. "We were just takin' t' the…"

Jack rolled his eyes and replied lowly, "Th' _clouds_, gents?"

"Aye! The clouds, sir…" He agreed in fear as they each stepped back.

"Get back t' work, the lot o' ye scabbard-dogs!"

With Jack's rambunctious shouting, they all threw themselves back to their duties, while he took a few steps closer to the rigging that Eva was still dangling from, completely unaware of the activity below. He tilted his face up to take his own, more than righteous peek at what the men had seen under the blow of the ocean breeze under her dress, and smirked to himself before reacting with a yell upward.

"Miss Marley!"

Eva's heart raced, not expecting him to call for her before the other men and she turned her face down toward the deck. Jack stood in a clear view of her moving dress hem, smiling terribly, and she grasped at the loose cotton with a shake of her head.

Below, he chuckled and shouted. "It's a bit late fer that guard, love."

To which she let her head fall back to the netted ropes, holding on tight to her dress and the rigging, and giggling a little herself as she heard Jack beckon again.

"Why not come down an' save wot's left of me crew from destitution?!"

After he said it, he glanced behind him to see the same group of men huddled close again, nearly panting. He growled at them silently and they skipped back to work, and when he turned his face up again, Eva was already halfway down to the deck, her bare toes clinging to the rope gracefully. He watched her in pure delight, favoring every bit of the training she'd been given at the Cove, and even more so, that she was performing it here on the Pearl with him rather than alone on the tiny schooner Teague had apparently gifted her. She was twice as appeasing when in her element aboard his larger ship.

Eva leapt down to the wet deck with a twirl toward Jack, and a grin over his shoulder when she saw the faces of numerous men, all desperate and brooding over her. She laughed when she met the eyes of Pintel and Ragetti, her trainers all of a half hour past. With a shake of her head at them, they nodded with sinful grins.

"It seems I've stirred something terrible in your men, I'm sorry."

Jack walked closer and took her hand, pulling her along from the proximity of his eyeing crew.

"Can't apologize for nature, Eva. They'd ave' the itch with or without yer legs for hobby."

She laughed a little and stumbled under his pace as Jack led her up the steps to the helm. Mr. Cotton moved aside when he saw the Captain and went down to the lower deck for other duties. Jack released Eva's hand to steer the wheel, and she wandered aside to lean on the rail of the ship, looking out on the crashing waves. She pondered Jack's words for a moment longer before turning about sexily, drawing his attention from the corner of his eye as he glanced to see her relaxing back on the ship.

"And what about you Jack…" she finally questioned with a purr in the wind, "…did you _itch_ even when I was gone?"

The burn from earlier in the morning was still wearing on his head but he grinned wildly and focused back on the sea ahead. His voice was a soft whisper of an answer.

"I crave you year round, lass."

Eva laughed at him and brushed the knots out of her long hair, spinning back to focus on the water again. They stayed in their respective positions and at a fair distance for a long time, an hour perhaps, each of the thinking about details that could easily be matched up in conversation, if there had been any, which there wasn't. Jack just liked having her close by, where he could take in the scent of wild jasmine and hear her breathing every so often above the sound of the waves.

Eva eventually took a seat on the rail, letting her legs dangle with one overboard and the other inside the ship for safety. Her toes wiggled in the breeze, catching the wet mist of the water against the dark sides of the _Pearl_. And while she was caught up in the peace of it all, she heard a faint wisp of a call to her side.

"Pssst."

Her eyes left the water and returned to the wheel, where Jack had his face flipped back and glare locked on her. Eva smiled at him curiously as he curled his ringed index finger at her, making a quiet summon. His eyes were seductive and different than before, not half as playful as they were vital. She slid from the rail though, and slowly walked up to him at the wheel. Jack grabbed her slight waist and pulled her under his arm to stand before the wheel, placing each of her hands softly on the spokes beneath his warm palms.

"What are you doing?" She whispered back at him.

Jack pressed his body into hers, sucking in the scent of her hair and neck, squeezing his hands over her tiny knuckles. Eva laughed a little but breathed deeper with him surrounding her, and found a steady focus on the sea dead ahead. Neither of them paid any attention to the gawking crew strewn about the lower decks.

"Want t' sail er'?"

His voice was husky in her ear as she twitched with a shiver.

"You're going to let me sail your ship?" Eva's response was a shocked one. "You're going to let a _woman_, sail her?"

"Why not? Ye seemed t' take to me _Harlot_ well nough'."

"True."

"An' you seem determined t' prove yerself all the time."

"Yes, but…"

"But…ye need a little _coercing_ do ye?" Jack gave her bottom a light squeeze and she jumped with a soft yelp.

His hands steadied her on the wheel again though, as she returned in mock.

"None so different from your crew are you, Captain Sparrow?"

He laughed and pressed their bodies closer together, Eva's head resting on his shoulder, and his eyes locked on the same shoals as hers were.

"I'll bet ye can sail er' just fine. Beautifully in fact."

"Your flattery is impeccable Did you study before stealing me?"

"No, m' completely serious."

"Well in that case…" she gripped the spokes tighter under his hands, trying to push his off. "…step aside."

Jack smirked a little fearful but slowly slid his hands away, "Are ye sure?"

Eva turned her face to him sternly on purpose. "Never surer. Now get back."

"Alright," he said with a tease, moving a few feet behind her, his hands casually drifting down and off her hips.

She took over perfectly well, as well as he could have ever imagined. Her hands were fierce but soothing on the chipped and jagged spokes of the wheel. She was tender, like a mother to the ship, holding it and guiding it down into the rougher shoals with a complexity of grace that Jack had never seen in any Captain before, even himself. It was like watching a woman cradle her newborn child, stroking at its petal like mold and rearing it into the world with sensitivity and bold ambition.

Eva's hips sashayed with the turn of the ship's hull into a deeper swell, one that brought a rush of mist onto the bow, but nothing more or less than what could be expected. He smiled as his eyes matched her tilting form with his vessel's, letting the breeze that blew though her long curls carry him right back to her again. Jack slid his hands about her tiny waist, pulling her into him as she turned back proudly.

"Well?" She offered for criticism or otherwise. "Have I proven myself to you all the more?"

"Profoundly."

Jack grinned wily and tucked his face into the crook of her neck, locating the warm skin behind her ear and nipping at it. Eva's spine tingled with the sensation of his rough teeth, hot breath and bristly mustache all at once, all taking her in one satisfying bite. She felt his hands roam from her waist up the sides of her body, cupping over her bare shoulders and sliding down her arms to reach her hands on the wheel again. In all this time, as she let short gasps leave her smiling lips, Jack never tore his from her skin, refusing to waver in biting or kissing or licking wherever he saw fit.

Eva noticed the men slowly dissipating to the stock hold for food, while only a couple lingered with their tasks across the deck. None of them saw the spectacle for some reason and she wondered briefly if it was out of proper respect for their Captain or if it was merely a coincidence that Jack had taken advantage of. With a lasting nip on her ear, she breathed in deep as she saw his hat drift off of his head and his eyes shoot a sideways glance up to the corner of hers.

"What d'ya say we make er' _sing_?"

Eva gulped at the piercing intensity of his glare and held the wheel even tighter as his hands did the same.

"Your ship _sings_, Jack?"

She asked so innocently, so gullibly that it made him chuckle with a wrongful shake of his head.

"No, no…"

He carefully eased her body around, pulling her hands from the spokes of the wheel to return them only once her back was pressed to it. He laid them each upon the handles same as the night he granted her stones in the dark alleyway of Shipwreck, and the memory made her body suddenly catch aflame. Jack's face came in toward hers, his mustache brushing the smooth skin above her lip as he whispered to her.

"I meant _you_, darling. Let us see you _sing_."

Her eyes fluttered closed against the heat of his breath and he smirked knowingly at the effect he was having, the one he loved having and so quickly with Eva always. He kept his hands firm around hers, steadying the ship into a proper way over the waves, and then he removed the right one to lightly dive between their bodies and creep under the short hem of her beaded, silk festooned dress.

"You can't be serious…" she breathed hard as his hand slid against the inside of her warm thigh, "…_here_? With your crew drawing sentiment on the scene for themselves?"

He nodded with an easy laugh and found the moistened heat of her center, waiting just for him. His fingers danced over the surface of her folds, twisting through the soft, wet curls as he watched Eva drift back hasher into the wheel.

"You are a sight t' behold whene'er I touch you there. I'll grant ye that till the end o' time, love."

Her eyes were zipped shut as she felt him very quickly, very smoothly penetrate her with a single finger. He pushed deep inside the slick and tight cavern with a shallow grunt of his own as he pushed his chest hard into hers at the wheel, his lips gently kissing her forehead. Eva caught a good wind enough to speak and took advantage of it.

"Lord…is this retribution for a certain _crude_ awakening?"

He laughed against the damp skin on her forehead. "No. It's fair compensation."

Eva grinned wildly as she felt his fingers draw in and out of her with rocking pleasure, touching every spot she needed and every one she hadn't thought to need so badly. Jack had entered her head again, the way only he had seemed to manage, and processed her thoughts long before she had them. A second finger drove inside when she asked silently for it with pants and soft moans on his cheek, and the pad of his thumb rubbed lightly on the underside of her aching clit. This made her grab at him with her hand that was free from his on the wheel and hold his neck tight, pulling him closer into her.

Jack sighed at the further interaction, glancing over her head only once to make sure that the waves were still there, and obviously, like the waves inside of Eva, they were well bound for miles. He carefully lifted her thigh up and tucked his arm underneath to gain a better, more fluid access to her glorified spot, the one that he saw already making her writhe in his hands.

"Jack…please, take me…" she breathed in his ear, as the sound of her clenching teeth forced his fingers to pump and twist together faster, drawing her body up higher from the ground with a sing-song moan. "Oh, yes…harder…"

And so harder he moved, diligent in every scissoring stroke he made. He focused on Eva's blinking, washed over eyes that had faded into a rich hazel blue, a color he could admit to having not seen yet. This made him mad with energy as he flicked her clit harsher and pumped up into her, causing the stir he wanted to see and feeling the muscles in her leg tighten. He slowed the pace when he felt a warm trickle of her heavenly sap on his fingers, making him smile into her cheek.

"Vang'line, you magnificent, _crooning_ little creature."

She found herself laughing away the pleasure and desperate pain of the moment, finally able to open her eyes wide again and see the sun and waves in the distance from the stern of the ship. It was the most beautiful the ocean had ever looked to her before, and nothing she determined, _nothing_ would ever match that first time Jack wooed her in that spot on the _Pearl_.

Eva felt like she was swimming in the ocean and leaping across the sun all at once. No man had made her feel that way before, and looking back into Jack's eyes put a fear in her, a fear which reminded her, despite all of the passion and kisses and intimate contact, he hadn't truly made himself hers yet either.


	17. Happiness is a Warm Gun

**

* * *

**

Happiness is a Warm Gun

* * *

_Running, always ready  
Feel as strong and steady_

_Tried to catch a glimpse of my old life  
But your face was all I saw._

_Blue eyes staring through me  
Baby, what are you doing to me?  
You scare me…_

-**Scare Me** by Kenny Chesney-

* * *

They had drifted on the Thailand banks long enough and Jack eventually called for them to weigh anchor and take to the small town at Kantang Port for the night. It had been years since he'd been back to this place, but if he could remember things well enough, and he was sure he did, then the town would prove to be a place he could further test Eva's limits.

He wanted to see her slowly gain footing in the element of life he loved. He knew she was good at stealing things, and having her way with men, and sailing a ship, but he needed to know more and see more of her.

Kantang was where this could happen.

Not to mention it being a place where he could secretly get a feel for the Company's situation and its placement on their trail thus far. For he knew, the more days that passed, the closer their plans for revenge and re-capture would draw them to her again. And he wasn't about to watch her get carried away from him.

With her arm tied into his like some sort of a prize, a handful of the crew stumbling behind them in laughter and rowdiness, Eva's eyes grew wide with curiosity as Jack walked her along by his thorough knowledge of the place. There were stalls and carts selling all kinds of exotic foods and spices, fish and cloth. She watched as children skipped around in dirtied clothes, all of them being shooed into doorways and alleys as the night approached heavily. She smiled, remembering briefly all of the children she'd left behind in Shipwreck. She missed them terribly.

"It looks untrusting by first eye, I know."

She turned to see Jack throwing his hands in an exaggerated wave as he talked of the town.

"This is only th' market, where the merchants come abroad from all o'er the world. Hypocritical fiends, the lot o' them. But the dark end o' town is where we're headed."

"And that's a place of trust? The _dark_ end of town?"

He laughed at her mockery.

"It's not at all, actually. Rather a load o' trouble t' get into, there."

"What kind of trouble?"

Leaning closer to whisper into her ear, Eva shivered at his words.

"That is a surprise, lass."

Jack gave her a thorough tour from window to window and door to door, greeting certain faces and making fair introduction of her to them. Merchants and businessmen of all kinds stumbled upon him with either a demand for owed coin (which he delivered heartily), or a bribe of purchase for something or other (in which case he used Eva as his getaway, claiming she was too tired to barter at night). She didn't mind because she enjoyed seeing him interact with a different crowd completely than that of the Cove. They mingled for the whole of an hour before they even made it to the outskirts of the darker part of the port Jack had mentioned.

And when they did, Eva could see why it was considered such, _immediately_.

From corner to corner, strung about with beads and gold bangles, barefoot and half dressed in fine but dirtied silks and satin dresses, were women of occupation, women Jack knew all too well for even her comfort. He tipped his hat to quite a few of them and offered even more of them coin or kisses on the cheek. Their language was incomprehensible to her, but she followed along in theory with smiles and gestures of greeting. Eva noticed though, that with the street women, the ones he'd no doubt bedded on his many swings through this raunchy little port, Jack didn't introduce her. He merely showed her off.

It didn't stop her from enjoying the sights of the strange new place, or the sounds, or smells as they moved along toward a string of shadowed windows and buildings. There was intensive, wiry music filling out of a few curtained, makeshift doorways, but the light from inside was red and dark. Jack pulled her through one of the lacey holes and helped her step easily inside of the dim building. Eva clung tight to the arm of his coat, fearing for a false step or word in this odd corner of the world and town.

"Don' worry love, you're fine by me side ere'."

She wasn't sure, but when she felt his lips in the hazy darkness press to her temple for an extended, passionate moment, her muscles relaxed and her step steadied. Jack turned back to walking her through the building as he called out, making her jump.

"Nittaya!"

A voice was returned for it from a further back room, but the tone and hue was again too foreign for her to understand. Jack did though, and he eased his arm around her waist to make sure she didn't fall too far behind in the dark, as he pulled her along and through one last, blue and beaded curtain.

"Jack…?" The voice came once more, with words she finally understood, "…Jack Sparr-ough, is dat' really you…?"

"Nittaya."

His answer was soft as he stepped forward to accept a kiss on each cheek from a woman much shorter and older than him, and only slightly shorter than Eva. She had a wide, surprised smile when she took the pair of them into her room, but she seemed perfectly sweet as she left two kisses on Eva's cheeks the same.

"Ave' a client for ye, t'night. If you're not busy, that is."

"Neva' busy for you, Jack."

Her proper English was well spoken even with her Asian twinge, and Eva was thankful for it. Jack pushed on her low back and tush, easing her closer to the woman's small candlelit table.

"She want t' get art, yes?"

He nodded wistfully, loving the way Eva's eyes widened and her brow shifted with lack confusion and fear.

"What art, Jack?"

"Whate'er you want, love. Nittaya will take care of ye."

Eva looked between him and the small, still grinning woman as she showed her into a chair. Jack slipped back through the curtain as if he was avoiding something for the better. She didn't realize what it was exactly, until she looked down between the mess of wax and flames to see a few sharp and shining tools in the orange light. She gulped and dug her nails into her palms as the little woman sat down before her.

"Don' fear, girl." She assured with soft hands on Eva's. "Dis' is joy."

"Joy?"

"Ya pick art."

"I don't understand."

The woman's smile grew as her faced turned to the curtain of the tiny room, and Eva heard her giggle slightly. The nerves set in. Everything became a cloud of distant noise and aromatic scents and amusing gestures from the Thai woman. And for years to come, as Eva would stumble in and out of Nittaya's shack for friendly visits, she swore always to Jack that it never hurt, not even that first time.

Although from his position on the other side of the curtain, getting to hear every wince and yelp and laugh, he knew she was lying at least a little bit, and he admired her for it. It just proved her as a truer pirate to him, ever more. The proposed purpose of Kantang was well worth the ploy.

* * *

Nittaya finished more quickly than Eva had imagined could be possible for such a thing, and used all sorts of herbs and tricks on her tenderized skin for a fast heal. When this was done, the little woman yelled something very immediate and foreign, and to which Jack came back into the room with a gaping smile.

"Well?"

"She don'. Did good, Jack."

"So I eard'."

"I had a feeling your constant prying would keep you close." Eva sighed.

"_Close_, but not close nough' to see wot' ye chose." He tossed his hands at her with a grin. "Let's ave' a look then."

She laughed softly and shook her head, almost embarrassed.

"Later."

"Later?" He questioned her back, surprised only until he glanced over at Nittaya.

"Lata, she say. You wait till she ready."

"Women…" he groaned, moving his hand out for Eva to take, which she did.

Jack reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a full bag of coins, not bothering to even count them before he dropped the entire pouch into the tiny hand of his old friend.

"That's for th' last time an' this, as well as me constant interest owed."

The woman flew back in haughty cackling and hugged him quick before doing the same to Eva.

"Come t' see me again. Yes."

Eva nodded with absolution. "I will, I promise. Thank you."

"Much welcome."

A lasting moment of goodbyes eventually led the two of them out of the small back room and through the others much faster than upon their arrival. Jack pulled Eva's arm steadily as she laughed. He brought her into the wider, somewhat better lit front room of the tiny building and pushed her against the cool clay wall. His hands held him in a hover on her body as she looked up at him shaking her smiling face.

"I want t' see it, now." His voice was desperate, demanding.

"You have very little patience. Are you aware?"

"Frighteningly aware o' it. Now show me this fine art I paid for."

Her eyes darkened with a sinister grin. "No. Later I said."

He didn't want to give in, but knew that pushing the point would be too risky with her tricky mind, and finally just agreed with a growl. "Fine. Wot' say we find us a bar t' mingle in, till you're good an' ready to show it off in a _private bed_ somewhere?"

Eva nodded and held onto him tighter as they careened through town, past the street corner lovers again and toward a tiny, hole in the wall tavern of sorts. It was dark and looming like Nittya's place, but she was thirsty for something heavy and intoxicating, and was more than happy to follow anywhere for rum.

Jack pulled her inside, easing around through the crowds of foreign faces with pats on the back, kisses from girls and more 'official' introductions of her. This made her feel better as they took a seat and he placed an order for a round of drinks at the table they'd integrated with. A few men looked her up and down for a moment, but eventually turned back to the bared skinned and bronzed women hanging from their necks and laps. Eva's eyes focused on what looked like a stage at the front center of the crowded bar until she felt that ever memorable bristle sensation on her mid neck and tilted with a giggle to trap the face that was settled there.

Jack's kisses were like kerosene in a wildfire forest, and it scared her to know such a thing was even possible on this earth. She didn't know if she wanted to be burnt by him so that he could eventually toss her aside for one of the finer wenches in the seven seas. As good as it felt when he nipped her skin and softened over it with the tip of his tongue, Eva had to silently ask herself if her run from Daniel's offer was a smart one.

What if it was the only one she ever got? What if Jack let her go in a frightful port with a few coins and a grateful swagger? What if this was just a temporary game for him or for her?

"Drink up me little gypsy, love."

His husky whisper in her ear brought her back to safe grounding as she saw a tankard slide toward her on the table. She laughed and downed a good portion of it with a quick chug. Jack watched her action with a curious eye over the rim of his own tin cup, smiling against the rum seeping through his lips. Her affinity for everything, unwarned tattoos, sturdy alcohol consumption, fierce sailing and even fiercer sex, had him in an alternate realm of thought altogether. No woman in his long years of travel, in any town or port or inn or tavern for that matter, had so well mapped out his passions, his own interests and desires as Evangeline.

She slammed the mug down to the harsh wooden table and wiped away the excess rum on her lips as the tavern's band keyed up on the stage.

"Another please."

He raised a brow under his bandana and hat with a twisted grin, as a waitress replaced her mug with a fresh one. Some of the other sailors and pirates around the table eyed her as shockingly as Jack himself did, and they all joined together in laughter as she threw back the second tankard with horrendous gulps.

"Easy," Jack urged softly beside her.

She ignored it and forced herself to finish off the second cup and eventually a third and fourth, tearing through them with a determination to soothe her whole body once and for all. As the thoughts and questions in her mind over Jack and Daniel and marriage and piracy propelled, so did her lips and the liquid flowing into her gut.

"Girl can drink ye out o' the door, eh Sparra?"

He turned to see an older, dirtied face, one of a sailor he'd stumbled across in many towns and taverns before. Jack couldn't quite remember the name of the man, but grinned all the same and finished his first drink as Eva sipped at the last of her final drink. The mug hit the table and he noticed her head loll backwards as she giggled.

"Better hope she can walk back t' the whore house on er' own, when ye've finished off with her."

Jack swallowed his tongue suddenly as the second, grumbling Italian man to speak chuckled loudly across the tavern. He imagined the fate of the man even before Eva had re-focused enough to speak, and when she did, he tightened his eyes shut in fear for only his fellow mate's livelihood.

Eva's gaze cinched on the large, beaten man's humored face as she leaned on the table ledge with a drunken sneer.

"I am no whore, sir."

"No? Not a hore'…well then, wot' are you?"

Eva turned to Jack quickly when she felt an insistent squeeze of his hand on her leg. But this didn't bring her to waver. She looked back into the man's sour eyes and smiled.

"I am a sailor, like yourself."

It didn't take long for the entire corner of listeners to belt out in humor and excitement over the response. Her jaw twisted as her eyes grew angrier though, watching them fall back in a roll of laughter. Jack brought his arm around her waist to steady her in the chair and keep her there, but Eva brushed his hand away and forced a proud stance between her chair and the table ledge, swiping away bottles of rum with numerous crashes on the wood floor.

Two dozen sets of eyes narrowed and turned suddenly.

"Is that something difficult to believe, gentleman?" A few women snickered. "Or you proud _ladies_?"

A younger man, with a shy grin glanced up at her. "Only sumthin' rather odd fer someone who looks like ye…" he choked nervously at her hasty glare, concluding, "…_Miss_."

"Someone like me? Meaning what, a _woman_?"

They nodded somewhat as she waltzed around the table. By now though, Jack had fallen to hiding his face halfway under his hat, too frightened for the fury he felt burning in her, the waves of displeasure he'd sensed when he touched her skin. Eva slipped in between men's chairs, touching their shoulders scantily, as any fine whore in the town might do for them. Her lips brushed over one man's ear as she crooned to him.

"Is not my voice _vigorous_ enough to chant orders to a crew?"

The man sat perfectly still, staring at her from the corner of his eye as Jack did the very same from under his hat across the table, a small grin finally beginning to come to his face.

Eva whipped around to fall into the free lap of the older, mocking Italian man as he sighed contently. Her arm was snaked around his neck as she took one of his thick and muddy hands into hers, gently easing it up her bare leg to the hem of her skirt. Jack had to bite his tongue to keep from storming through the table to pull her off.

"What of my skin sir…" her breath was hot on the man's whiskers and lips as his eyes fell into his head. "…is it too _soft_ to be that of a sailors?"

The man shook his head and gulped when she got up to come around his chair and head for the first questioning pirate. He chuckled briefly in anticipation for his turn as she came in close to his open and readied legs. She placed each of her hands on his shoulders as she lowered herself to the ground in front of him. Jack threw himself back from his chair, standing to see over the table at what she was doing, his own gut and crotch growing anxious with her close movements at the other man's.

"Tell me will you,_ kind_ man of the sea…"

An anxious grumble left the brute's lips as a crowd developed further around the scene, a few giggling Thai bar wenches, surrounded mostly by continental sailors, traders, musicians and crew men. Jack ignored them all just to watch as Eva's fingers touched the bruised thickness in the man's pants, while his begged on without her help and his hand on the pistol in his sash drew him nearer and ready.

She finally spoke up again seductively. "…am I too meek a girl, too _desirable, _to be taken seriously upon a ship?"

Eva pouted at the man as he moved his hands down in what nearly became an action of moving her face upon his hardened pants and the flesh that lay closely beneath. But instead, as his hands swept toward her and his hips bucked at her face, she fiercely and without any expectation of warning, grabbed his wrist and twisted it until she could hear bone snap.

The crowd hushed with a united cry of shock over head as the dirty old sailor moaned out deeply at the pain. But she was only half done and Jack knew it by the tense veins in her neck and arms. But what really made him leap into a bolt around the table, were the finely suited red coats he saw pummeling through the other side of the crowd, coming straight for her activity. He pushed through bodies the same in order to get to her first.

"Eva!"

She could only half hear him over the shouts of the audience and instead concerned herself with the bottle that made its way into her hand, raising it overhead and letting it come down to crash against the man's sweaty, balding temple with a fit of rowdy screeching.

"I am a sailor, girl or not!"

Jack stumbled through laughing faces and cheering bodies to catch onto her flailing wrist and pull her back through. Eva fought him the entire way, not quite done with the men in question or the attention she loved to have gained in the tavern. She smiled as Jack pulled on her arm, accepting the pats on the back she received and praises the same. And eventually, when she caught her feet well enough in the middle of the crowd, she let her hand slip from his again and stopped to mingle with enthusiastic, drunken acceptance.

"I'm glad you all so highly approve of my dreams! Thank you! Thank you!"

She curtsied a few times, laughed and accepted men's kisses on her cheek like the ones Jack had gotten from women all night. But when he turned and saw the wave of red inching through dirtied civilians toward her, he struggled to get back to where she was again and wrap his arm around her waist as he lifted her from the center of the insatiable gathering and through the tavern doors to the street. Eva only let him because the alcohol was beginning to stream through her blood in a heated rush and his arms around her felt too good to deny. Much better than even her sudden popularity on the Thailand coast.

When they made it to a clearing in the street, Jack still didn't let her go, although she begged him to. He was determined to get them back into the shadows of the town again until he could round the crew to head for open ocean. The risk was too great, even here, but he refused to mention it to her in the state she was in.

She yelped and hollered with foggy laughter and comprehension as he carried her all the way back toward the docks. Passing curious and entertained men, green-eyed women of envy and even a few curious officer types at the port head, he managed to sneak back down the shoreline to where they had anchored the Pearl out of sight in the darker waters. Eva did not stop trying to wiggle free, not when he hauled her up the gangplank, or struggled with her across the deck in front of a couple of his younger crew members.

"Jack I'm not a child, let me go!"

She grunted like one though and flung out of his arms as he pushed through the cabin doors with a slam back and let her down. Nearly falling to the floor, he caught her wobbling form.

"You must ave' made one hell of a youngster when ye were one then."

She rested against his chest, her knees as weak as her head.

"Eva?"

There was only a groggy response from where her face was pressed into his shirt, holding on to his arms for support. She mumbled a few things, but only one was coherent and amusing enough to grasp his full attention.

"Is it time…for the _private bed_ part of our adventure yet?"

Jack stroked back her hair with a laugh as she moved her face away. He wanted to give her an immediate answer, the 'yes, without a doubt' that he was thinking, but another part of his brain was deliberating the situation of the redcoats back in town. So he waited until she spoke again.

"Why is that funny? Have you finally had your fill of me?"

She was stumbling with words and feet in front of him so he knew to think very little of her questioning, but all the same, when he had let himself think of the British Navy threat ashore as meek and unimportant, he leaned down and lifted her into his arms, carrying her directly to the mattress.

He dropped her down into the feathery sheets and stripped his effects in a flash, thinking only that time was of the essence in their current situation. Eva took a bit of the hint with a wide smile and began untying the sash of her tunic and unbuttoning her pants. Jack beat her to it though, with his shirt and breeches both removed in a quick shot. He pushed her back down to the middle of the bed as he climbed over her body, finishing the task of ridding her of the silks and satins that covered her.

He worked fast without saying a word and it worried Eva a little. She held his face over hers in both her hands and steadied him for a moment.

"Aren't you going to say anything to me?"

With a deep, smiling breath he said, "You ave' the most beautiful blue eyes. They sink me like a stone in th' ocean."

A grin crept to the corner of her mouth as she moved her hand in a seductive, silent request for more compliment. This killed Jack and he tore her pants off, sliding down between both of her legs and pressing his hardened cock to the velvet skin on the inside of her thigh.

"An'…you put on quite th' little show back there."

"I did, didn't I?"

"You did. I think they got a lesson they'll naught' forget soon."

"Good."

She beamed proudly beneath his lips as she wove her fingers deep into his twists of locks. Jack pushed against her harder and watched as her lips parted with a loose moan. Smiling at her mouth, he took it over before she could fill her lungs again, and swarmed around tasting the rum on her tongue and teeth, making him all the less sober and happy for it.

He pulled away with a hand firm on her hip as he drew her bare leg to hook around his back. Without warning and an easy turn on the mattress, Jack fell to his back instead and moved Eva to sit clinging to his lap as she laughed. She steadied herself with palms and cinching nails on his stomach as she traced over a few of his fading tattoos.

The one she'd been drawn to the most, but still hadn't asked about, was of a dotted trail, one like that of a map. She followed the small marks down the left side of his chest with wispy fingertips, and watched as it disappeared in a curve around his hip. Words too, ones she didn't understand to read, followed the path.

"You have been marked so many times more than me."

His eyes were hollow and dark with desire when she caught them again and she moved to press her firm breasts upon his burning chest with kisses that stifled on his bristly chin and smooth neck.

"I want _you_ t' mark me, Eva."

He growled and she felt his fingers pulling at the skin in her hips and legs as she ground hard against him, tugging at his hair with the movement and kisses.

"However…will I…do that?"

Her moist heat came into contact with his itching shaft a dozen times before he finally held her still and raised his legs so she could settle back on them. She grasped behind her and under his knees, locking her fingers around them as she rose to meet his free standing, more than ready cock.

"Use yer wild tricks."

"My wild tricks, Jack?"

He grunted up at her as he felt her suddenly grasp onto the lower part of his already angry shaft, squeezing with the fierceness he refused to deny of her.

"That's one o' them, m'sure."

She laughed and grabbed him more roughly as she brought her body down upon the head of him, taking in his trackless length in one fall. They both moaned out in unison, his low with pressure, hers sweet and unruly. As she adjusted on his lap, her lips brushing over his mouth the way her body did to his, Jack whispered in a mumble.

"An' that's another…"

Eva swooned with more laughter and gripped her thighs tight to him as she rubbed her body down on him. It made his head spin with more pleasure than he feared he was allowed in this life. He tossed his head to the side a few times before finding her eyes as a safe haven in what felt like an unfair storm.

He was wrong though. Her eyes only made the winds and waves of the imaginary hurricane rush harder in him.

"_Oh_…just kill me why don't you…" Jack threw his head back and eyed zipped with a groan.

"Alright."

The sound of her voice in his ear was followed by the instantaneous click of a familiar tool. Jack's eyes flew open again as he felt the cold iron of a certain barrel end slid down his temple and cheek. His eyes tried to follow the sensation but he didn't know whether to follow the gun or her eyes.

"Where do you want it?"

Jack gulped under her, not sure whether or not to fear her in truth. Eva was a complicated mess of deception from what he'd already learned, and he wouldn't put it past her to be the one who finally killed a legend between his own sheets. The steely barrel of the gun tickled his hot skin as she left it trailing down his neck, chest and down to his hip under her.

With a breathy whisper on his lips she asked, "You look so frightened, Jack. Do I really _frighten_ you so?"

He groaned.

She began slowly moving again with the gun aimed firm at his left side.

"You ave' no _bloody_ idea…" he finally managed before the world caught on fire again.

Eva tossed the gun aside, knowing the threat had passed and that she had to use other tricks to really win the game at hand. She began to slide down onto him harder and faster and for the first time in his many years of this fine and passionate lifestyle, Jack could hardly move or think to move. He tried to lift his hips to meet her strokes, but he was paralyzed by her eyes and her teeth nipping at his neck and her nails scratching rough on his chest as she sat up and tossed her head back. Her long dark curls drifted in the air at her wild movements, and he tried to contain what little was left of him.

She too was losing it slowly, the end edging on as she let her ever pleading clit brush through the soft black hairs of his lower abdomen. Eva leaned into his propped legs as she drove against him in the most feral of ways, circling her hips a little to watch as Jack's eyes rolled as far back into his head as they could. A flutter of his kohl dusted lids made her do the same as she held his knees for everything they were worth and screamed out his name loudly.

Jack had to force his eyes open again at the sound of his name radiating through the cabin, and when he did, he'd wished he'd never shut them in the first place. He tilted his head up as he watched Eva's tight and delicate curves consuming every inch of him, hiding it deep within her as she drove against him violently. Her lips were parted to let air slip between for survival alone as she moaned out his name and the Lord's in vain, over and over again.

All of this greatness though, could not match the sight of her hips as they slid across his lap, or the image of her fresh tattoo, settled at the small corner below her hipbone. It was of a tiny blue sparrow in flight, no doubt to match his. And it flew directly toward the burning convergence of their bodies, driving him mad as Eva thrust down upon him again with a startling yelp.

This made his skin tingle like never before and he fell down to the sheets one last time when her palms pushed him there.

"Jack …"

He could feel the loss of control in her, though she stayed strong and vibrant over him. Jack felt a pinch of himself inside of her and bit his lower lip with the sudden yearning for release. He held her hips firm, helping her to finish the task that was making her legs and arms grow too weak for completion. He found the potency deep in his heart and mind to lift his hips and meet her final hits. And together, as he watched the little black sparrow dance on her grinding, honey skin, and as she fell down to bite harshly into the flesh on his chest, Jack and Eva came to a fiery, drenched end, shouting out one another's hellish praises.

The waves of pleasure rushed over them like the ones beneath the _Pearl_, and Eva covered Jack and the wound she'd made, kissing it lightly, breathless and doused in a sweet layer of his sweat and hers. He wiggled his toes and stretched his legs out to test the muscles and blood pumping through them as he held her atop his body. When he was certain his health was still stable despite the rapid windblown torrent of his heart, he noticed Eva kissing the heated skin she'd bitten, like some sort of a cherishing beast.

"I'm sorry," she smiled innocently and then moved to kiss it one last time, "I think I drew blood."

Jack laughed and grabbed her face from his chest to move it to his mouth instead. She was right, for he could taste the coppery tang of fresh blood on her tongue as it danced with his. It only made him grow more viciously attached to her though, and when she tried to pull away from the kiss to breathe Jack caught her off guard as he bit down on her lower lip. A short stab of pain went through her skin, feeling his teeth nip the tender lip hard enough to in turn draw blood from her.

He let her go and smiled wickedly, with stars still in his eyes.

"Now we're even 'gain."

Eva smirked at him, letting the tiny drop of blood on her lip remain and dry, as she stroked the short, curling black hairs around Jack's ears and temple. She watched too as the single burning candle in the room played on the pinkish and cocoa skin of his sun kissed nose and cheeks.

"I'm glad you consider me a fair equal."

"Guess I ave' too, ay?"

She twisted her brow down at him, confused. His answer was delivered with prompt tire and a brief chuckle as his eyes closed to the smoothness of her fingers brushing his face.

"After that spectacle t'night, if I don't…I'll most likely 'ave me prick torn an' fed to the dogs."

Eva laughed against his nose as they heard a low moan from the other side of the room. Jack's head twisted back on the mattress to see over the bed a ways and Eva's eyes too looked into the dark corner, both smiling when they saw Dill's face and ears perked up.

"Don't get too eager o'er there mutt."

With a turn of his face back to hers, Eva relaxed him with her lips and fingers along his cheeks and forehead again.

"I wouldn't dream of sharing any single part of you with the dogs. Especially…_this part_…"

She ground her bare hips and skin against his re-hardening flesh, tensing him for a second round. Jack rolled his eyes and held her as he grunted and flipped her over to her back instead. He was far from finished with her, based on the pure assumption that she seemed to be far from done with him. And even a few redcoats with curious agendas couldn't stop the lasting flame.

"Devil…devil…_devil_ woman ye are…"


	18. Out of Here

**

* * *

**

Out of Here

* * *

_Is there anybody going to listen to my story  
All about the girl who came to stay?  
She's the kind of girl you want so much it makes you sorry,  
Still you don't regret a single day.  
_

_Ah girl, girl…_

-**Girl** by _the Beatles_-

* * *

Jack had made love to Eva until she had cried for mercy, once in each of his ears. He'd touched and kissed every last pore of her skin, dwelling in specific places, places he was slowly growing to love more than others. The inside of her thighs for example, which now, in waking under a black, midnight ceiling and cotton sheet, left her rubbing at them, remembering the sensation his lips and teeth had made there.

Her body turned in the bed until she heard the scratch of a compass point to charting paper and raised her head. Jack was at his table, his honey-skinned back slightly turned from the bed and unconscious of her waking behind him. He was focused on whatever he was mapping and she was happy for it. A plan was exactly what was needed now, as the _Pearl_ sat anchored still in the night harbor of a Company infested town. She just didn't know that part yet.

Very quietly, she slipped from the bed, pulling his discarded tunic down her bare skin. It was long and sizeable enough to act as a good enough cover, falling to her mid-thighs and hiding her hands altogether. She tiptoed toward the back of his chair, sneaking in to cover his eyes with her warm hands. He jumped a little at first, but grinned when he felt secure under her arms.

"Guess who?"

Eva's teasing whisper in his ear made him grow hard within an instant, something he could hardly control anymore.

"King George, is that you?"

She shook her head at him and leaned over the chair closer, feeling the heat of his bare shoulders in the space where his shirt draped at her breasts.

"Guess again."

"Hmm…" Jack teased back, moving his hands up to cover hers "…Aphrodite perhaps?"

"Oh and what I'm sure you would give for a Greek goddess in your bed, Captain."

He pulled her hands away as he tilted his head back against the chair to see her eyes hovering over him.

"I ave' a perfectly suitable one in me bed already."

"Well how fortunate for you indeed!"

He tugged at the sleeve of his shirt on her and brought her around the chair, giggling, as she fell across his lap sideways and clung to his neck for safety.

"I must say…" he let his hands run the course of her long legs, coming up to stop and grip onto the dirty hem of his shirt against her thighs. "…I like this look on you, darling."

Eva beamed and whipped her body around to wrap her legs about him in the chair. Her arms remained on his neck, pulling him forward as she fell back toward the desk ledge, their lips nearly touching.

"Maybe I could further test its popularity on deck come fall of morning?"

"No."

"No? You are a greedy man."

"Within good reason, yes I am."

Her crooked smile met his hot mouth.

"And so is your intention to cage me yet again?"

"You do make quite a fine pet, with that lovely song voice o' yers…"

Jack nodded and forced her lips to come closer as he tasted them each softly. His rough hands eased the shirt away from her thighs around him, as he traced the outline of her sides and back underneath. Eva breathed as much as she could when he kissed her firmly. All she could do was imitate the action the same; something she didn't mind.

"You make me sing, Jack."

"And on that note…" he began, letting his jeweled hands ride up her legs to pinch at the skin where he knew her tattoo was freshly settled, "…let us not waste another moment without fair gander at that little sparrow o' yours in the candlelight..."

She sighed against his advance with a giggle and asked, "Was it a fair choice for ink, to match yours? Or is it so a forward motion on my part as to turn you from me?"

"Let it be forward. In fact, let it be so _forward_ as t' allow me the gift o' hearing ye cry out like a chirping bird for the rest of the night…" he groaned as he squeezed her hips harder to him. "I long t' see it again and again."

Eva ran her hands across both his cheeks, leaving soft pecks on his nose and brow and eyes. But before he could take the moment any father, Eva rose and turned back around in his lap. She sat comfortably on his legs with hers draped to each side as she leaned over his table of messy charts, staring wildly.

"Tell me where we're headed first."

Jack's arms were warm around her waist as he pressed his chin to her shoulder blade, glancing over at the same view of countless compass markings. Her fingertips followed the paths, imitating two little feet walking the route and it made him smile and kiss her skin where his shirt bared it.

"Well if you'll so allow me t' find this treasure o' yours…then we're sailing t' Ireland."

"Ireland, now?"

"Aye. Just as soon as I round th' men from town."

"And you want to find Grace's cache, on Clare Island?"

"Don't you?"

She looked closer at the maps, her eyes sketching the boundaries of Ireland and its tiny out-skirted islands. She found Clare Island and pressed her index finger on it, glancing over her shoulder to see Jack's hopeful eyes.

"Of course I want to find it."

"I sense there's more t' it though."

"Quite a bit more." She fell back against his chest from the desk with sigh. "There's Daniel."

Jack knew this is what it was and was loathe to say it for himself; he had wanted to hear it from her. Her head rested under his chin as his arms swarmed her with kisses.

"What o' him, Eva? E's a sea behind us."

"He is for now, unless he's sent officers in his place. Do not you think he'll make a chase?"

"I would only hope the man would be smart enough t' chase after you."

She tried to smile at his sweet words but found it was too hard under the circumstances.

"My being here is putting your ship and crew at a great risk. And it's weighing heavy on my head already."

"The risk is my own. It was my choice to swindle ye away on the Pearl, an' twill be my decision the same when the Navy shows face."

Eva shook her head in distress and moved out of his arms to walk across the room, spinning around in confused circles for a long time. He watched her carefully with an upturned brow of his own as he glanced from the painted Irish coast on the maps to her body swaying under his shirt in the low candlelight. When he came to a sudden, silent conclusion, he rose and met in her in the middle of the space between the bed and desk. His hands were firm on her arms as he stopped her movement.

Eva looked into his eyes as they stared down at her and swallowed hard on her confusion, before falling into a wild plan that dizzied him.

"Don't do this. Take me somewhere, Jack. I'll hide out until any threats have passed over or until Daniel finds reason to believe I've been killed or something…"

"And then wot'?"

Her eyes tightened at his question. "I don't know. But you and the _Pearl_ will be safe again."

"No." Jack shook his head and massaged her shoulders. "M' never safe, Eva. I was at risk long before I brought you back t' this ship."

"So why increase the risk and make it all the more imperative for the Company to find you? That's foolish."

"Then I accept being a right fool."

Her eyes rolled once before he brought his face down close to hers.

"A fool for _you_."

Eva sighed with a one strong tear in her eye. "Jack…"

"I want ye with me on this ship, no matter who tries t' take asunder. Something about you being ere'…it…"

He paused, glancing away in exhausted thought as she bit her lip in a stare.

"What?"

Too afraid to speak any further, he only clarified again, holding her firm and seriously. "I won't toss you off this ship a second time, an' especially not on some random spit o' land. You'll stay an' together we'll find the Clare Island hoard."

"We will."

It was a clear statement, not a question or wonder. Eva accepted his terms, only half understanding his reasons behind them. Jack hadn't said anything further than his wanting her to be on the ship to find the treasure. Even his hesitation and strange way of coming to the conclusion, she brushed aside on purpose to save her mind from having to analyze it. Like Jack in so many ways, Eva had little tolerance for emotional scrutiny; especially of others feelings.

"I'll stay for now then."

"Good."

He nodded and turned for the charts again. He wasn't sure he preferred her words, 'for now'. But he forced the thought away and noticed when he'd taken a seat again, that she came in to lean on the corner of his table, watching his movements over the maps. With a wicked smile, he eventually turned his face back up to the source of his every beautiful break in concentration.

"Something else, love?"

"Yes."

Her fingers swept over his mustache as he grinned in waiting.

"I want you to promise me that when the moment has passed, when _this_ has passed over in your mind…" she made a close wave of her hand to gesture at their position together. "…that you'll tell me. I won't be a burden to you Jack. I couldn't possibly let myself do that. You're a free man, quite a _charming_ free man at that, and I understand more now than ever the importance of freedom. Don't feel that you have to keep me here just because--"

He was confused and delighted and altogether aflame from her spinning web of speech, and took the liberty of hushing her worried mind with his hand on the nape of her neck, pulling her mouth down to his. Eva drained him body and spirit no matter the technique she had of doing it. Whether it was words or kisses or legs on fire, she filled him up like only rum and the sea had ever attempted. She had him wrapped around her ever calling finger. She had him torn to pieces and ripped to shreds with every little smile and touch.

His tongue wove around inside of her mouth, treating it like it was his new safe haven, a new reserve for his load of toiling thought and bitter digression. He pulled her closer to him, his hand locked on her scalp through the thick curls. She moaned against his lips and he felt his bare feet sink through the wooden floor. She surrendered her tongue to him and he could hear the oceans spill over in his mind.

Jack wrapped his arm about her waist and scooted her quickly to sit on the ledge of the desk in front of him. Eva pulled back from his mouth to hold his cheeks in her hands and catch a quick breath. He sat still in the chair below her, his lips coming to rest on her bared knee from under his shirt, kissing it lightly.

"Ardent interlude though it may be…" she sighed with a grin as he stood up and between her legs. "…I still desire your promise."

"Promise of wot'? Of casting you aside with fair warning?"

Her eyes crossed in confusion but she eventually nodded quick, "Yes. That."

"No," he returned and walked away from her, making his own contribution to the back and forth movement in the cabin.

Eva jumped down from the desk and followed after _him_ this time, nearly falling into his back when he stopped abruptly at the bed.

"So you won't make the promise. Then surely that can only mean you plan to toss me off _without_ a warning."

He stood tall and didn't move. She watched the scars down his back twitch when he breathed deep.

"I don't mind. I truly don't, Jack. Why ever would I expect you to want to spend the whole of your time with me?"

He spun around quick, staring her down with intense eyes. She gulped and finalized.

"I'm one woman of many in this world."

"You're right."

Her eyes widened with shock as he stepped closer.

"You're one woman o' _too_ many. I ave' to wade through a million o' them in me mind this moment alone."

"I'm satisfied then to know your memory is of worth."

"No." His hands came in to hold her shoulders, pulling her into him. "Listen t' me."

She did.

"I swim through a sea of names an' pretty faces and still I only want t' think and see yours."

Eva shivered in his hands, fearful of the turn the conversation was taking. None so different from his fear though.

"You drive me mad from sunrise t' set, without a day of relief."

Confused, she softly replied in question of him. "My apologies?"

"No, _no_." He raised a finger at her. "Don't apologize for something beyond your power."

"But it is--"

"No darling, s'not."

"Oh no?"

She crossed her arms inside of his, tapped her foot and raised an eyebrow up at him.

"How could you know th' rush in me head? How could you know…how much I feel when you're around me…how much I--"

His voice and lips over hers were cut short by a loud banging at the cabin doors.

"Jack Sparrow!"

Jack growled low and moved Eva behind him, pushing his chest out and whispering angrily at the door, "_Captain_."

Eva pulled on his bare arm, nearly scratching as the door shook violently.

"Jack…"

"Sh. It's fine."

"You are to open this door straight away and release the girl!"

His mind rushed as quickly as could be managed, he darted his eyes to the desk where his effects lain, and shuddered with a movement to grab them. The crashing of glass in the cabin doors startled him though and he and Eva turned back to see a hand reaching into one of the small broken squares and unlocking the door. Jack grabbed hold of Eva's waist tight seconds before the door swung back against the wall, with more glass crashing and half dozen red coated men moved with bayonets, shouting.

"Let her go, Sparrow!"

One of the first men, ripped Eva away from Jack and bundled her into his huge arms without concern for her being half nude.

"Jack! No! Stop it, let me go!"

She screamed out for him and he could do nothing, as two other men came in and forced him against a nearby wall, placing the freshly sharpened edge of a sword to his throat.

"_No_…Jack!"

He watched as she struggled in the large man's arms, draped with a sheet from the bed, and tears streaming from her sapphire eyes. A pain ripped through him all too suddenly and he choked to shout out against the tight blade at his Adam's apple.

"You're mine, Eva! He can't ave' you!"

The two men forced him the wall more roughly, grunting out arguments to his passionate call. Above the noise of ransacking and screaming, he could also hear Dill barking. He saw the small mutt nipping at the heels of the large man who disappeared back to the deck with Eva, as the lead officer of the pack came to stand between the two holding him, and smirked like a soldier with a promotion in his near future.

"Jack Sparrow, you are being seized per the King's own request for your crimes upon these seas and your latest conquest and theft of Miss Evangeline Marley."

Jack grunted against the blade and men's hands on him, as he wriggled to get free and run after the men who had Eva. But it didn't work, so instead he spit at the Lieutenant in front of him.

"Theft without dispute from th' lady isn't a crime at all, mate."

The man scowled at Jack, his catch of a short lifetime.

"A theft of another man's well _suited_ interest, to be quite accurate about it, rouge. And because said gentleman is a proper earner for the Crown, the felony here is an obvious one."

He came in close with harsh breath on Jack's nose as he continued crudely.

"Whatever you had planned to do to the young lady, and however it came to be that you swindled her of her clothing in your cabin, you can rest assured, Sparrow, it will all be taken before the court as you walk the steps of the noose."

The man had the opportunity to take one last breath before he made his conclusion.

"You will hang this time, _undoubtedly_."

The word slithered from his proper lips and slapped Jack in the face for a short second. For it could have been no longer an amount of time that passed before a loud shot rang out from behind them and the left cheek of the Navy officer in front of him, his enemy, shattered and created a mist of blood upon everyone in range.

Jack's eyes grew wide as the Lieutenant fell to the floor under his feet and as he got a clear view through the smoke. Standing with an arm still raised, a gun still pointing toward the scene and an angry scowl on their face, was a gypsy in a sheet.

"Step away from him."

She aimed the pistol toward the two men holding Jack to the wall and cocked it back again. They hesitated to let go but each released his body when they watched her come in closer to them, a readied look of anything but fear on her face. She was prepared to kill them all if need be. Instead though, she gave them strict orders as Jack stood mesmerized, befuddled, and falling deeper into the emotional situation he had tried to deny.

"Take off your coats and boots."

The men looked to each other nervously, but with their only authority bleeding to death on the floor and their fellow officers out of sight and probably as equally dead, they began to remove their clothing. They left their hats, red coats, boots and weapons in a large pile in the middle of the room. Jack was still beside himself and smiling like a child.

Eva stepped closer when they had finished.

"Raise your hands to your heads and walk."

They again, did as they were told, and walked in only their socks and breeches through the doorway of the cabin and back to the deck. Eva kept them in line with the pistol drawn behind as Jack followed her out with his sword drawn. He could have taken over the task easily, but saw no point to bother when she was doing such a brilliant job at making him harder with delight by the second.

The Navy officers reached the gangplank after weaving through three bodies of their fellow officers, and Eva walked them all the way down the pier until she had them at the very end before town again.

"I'm letting you both go free. But you are to tell whoever sent you to find me, that I am dead and that the hunt must cease here. Do you understand?"

The two young men nodded quick and slowly inched away from her. When there was a safe enough distance, Eva watched the two of them running in their stockings back into the darkness of the town and laughed at them. Placing safety on the pistol, she let it swing back and forth as she pranced back down the docks in only a sheet for the ship. When she made it up the plank once again, a wide smile shining under the moonlight, she caught sight of Jack where she had left him, eyes and mouth gaping at the three large men painting his deck crimson.

He looked up when he saw her and just shook his head.

"What?" She asked innocently.

"Is that all ye ave' to save for yourself?"

"They misjudged my force is all."

He laughed at her, beside himself still. "Hell indeed hath no fury tonight, eh?"

"Indeed." She smiled and moved to wrap her arms firmly around him. "Hell cannot match my fury for protecting _you_. Even when scorned."

Jack consumed her in a huge hug and laughed; both of them standing in the middle of a mine field.

"I believe it."

* * *

It took less than an hour for Jack and Eva to round the crew from the few taverns in town and bring them back to the ship. Orders were made for them to clean up and dispose of the mess of officers on the ship, as well as to prepare for sailing out of port. Jack watched over the operation on deck for a while, but Eva went to the cabin exhausted.

It wasn't an easy sleep she took however, since the rest of the night was spent with the _Pearl_ fighting its way through a horrid ocean storm as they moved from the British coast for the open Irish waters next door. Eva didn't know this part though and could only focus on trying to still her dizzying head in the pillows of the mattress as the ship swayed and cracked against the squalls. And it was in this position that she finally passed out.

Another hour or so dwindled and the rains slowed enough for Jack to relax the wheel back into Cotton's hands for the remainder of the journey. He was halfway down the stairwell, drenched and headed for the cabin when he ran into Gibbs.

"Gibbs, keep er' following the British curve. Don't call me again until we've made it t' Galway. Remember how t' get there, don't ye?"

"Aye Cap'n. Are we takin' to salvation or is there a promise o' coin t' come?"

"Hopefully both."

Gibbs nodded with a smile and before Jack could turn into the cabin, he offered one more inquiry, something the entire crew was curious about.

"Did ye really take on th' lot o' those redcoats alone, Jack?"

He wasn't sure why Gibbs sounded so unsure, so surprised by such a thing since he'd accomplished much more complicated tasks before. But he smiled a little, held up his hands in surrender and replied.

"Wasn't me, mate."

Together their heads turned to the cabin doors that hid Eva, and while Jack found himself holding back from laughing, Gibbs eyes only grew wide in shock.

"S'not possible."

"Not possible…not _probable_…" Jack glanced back at the older man and pushed open the door of the cabin. "…but I swear t' you, she did."

He left his older friend hanging on the profound clue to Eva's true character, something that neither of them could deny would be what gave them every reason to keep her aboard, despite her being a female. Jack moved inside and closed the cabin door behind him. He looked across the room toward the bed where Eva was keeled over from fatigue, her arm hanging off the side of the mattress, her body spread out belly-down and her face hidden in a pillow and under her hair.

_Th' sight I worship…_he thought to himself with a smile as he began stripping his wet clothes and replacing them with dry ones. Before he could make it back to the bed and slide under the covers with her, Eva stirred awake drunkenly and sat up to wait for him. A second later he turned with fresh breeches on and nothing more to catch her sparkling eyes melting into his.

"Did the storm pass?"

"Mmhm." He nodded and crawled onto the end of the mattress toward her.

"And where is she heading now?"

He landed in the middle of the bed and fell down to his back.

"Gibbs is sailing her t' Ireland."

Eva looked down at him with her hand stroking his bare, tired chest.

"Right now?"

"Aye. Headed for Clare Island."

"Grace. The treasure?"

He nodded up at her with a gold-glinted smirk.

"Still interested?"

"Don't tease me, Jack."

He reached up wearily and let the pad of his thumb brush over her lower lip.

"I don't tease when it comes t' gold, love."

She smiled wide and dropped her mouth and body across his, not kissing but speaking softly.

"I'm satisfied knowing as much."

"So that's a 'yes Jack, let's find th' treasure now, _please'_?"

She laughed at his lips and bit down on the bottom one. He was suckered into her playfulness this way and only thrown aback by one thing; one thing that made his entire body tense with desire when Eva whispered stormily through her nibbling, piratical teeth, "_Aye_."


	19. A Good Place to Land

**

* * *

**

A Good Place to Land

* * *

_Say the first thing that  
Comes into your head when you see me  
If it looks like it works and it feels like it works  
Then it works  
_

_With the sun on your face  
All these worries will soon disappear  
Just follow me now._

-**WOW** by Snow Patrol-

* * *

The crew was rowdy and livened by the spotting of early land, the land that had been rumored all through the night to house the steepest treasure they'd seen yet. They were relaxed in the rigging and across the deck, awaiting Jack's wake so that they could be given commands for preparation ashore. The sprawling green hills and white stone beach of Clare Island was a sight to be seen, one many of the men knew simply from having been bred in these waters. It was home to more than just Eva it seemed.

And while the men lolled around disheveling the rum supply and telling dirty jokes, she was listening to it all with humor as she stood in front of a small mirror in the corner of Jack's cabin. She had dressed in more of his clothes and pillaged through his chests looking for what else she needed. She had scoured a ragged old green sash of his and tied it about her tiny waist, same as he always did with his. She found an old pair of boots, small enough for her feet, as well as a used shift of fabric that she tied around her head as a bandana to hold her long hair from her face.

She smiled at herself, peeking out from under the blue cloth. With dramatic emphasis as if she were performing on a stage, she pressed one hand to her heart and threw the other about in the air silently, whispering out at herself.

"Oh…_Evangeline_…you are the most turbulent pirate in all the world." She giggled a little and turned back to see Jack stretched across the bed and passed out, clueless. Her acting continued as she spoke his imagined words. "You put every scallywag from here to Iceland to shame! You are my _one…true…love_…"

Jack moaned a little with his face pressed into the sheets at the end of the bed. Dill was nuzzled close to his thigh, having obviously grown attached to him with her absence, and she shook her head at the pair of them. When they began to stir though, she took one last glance with a laugh in the mirror before grabbing Jack's sword off of the table and tiptoeing for the door. When she pulled it open a crack, she turned her face back and smiled at him lovingly but with ferocity, and then growled at him with a bite of her jaw.

"I'm going to make you wish you'd left me for dead, Captain Sparrow."

A wide grin covered her face as she stumbled out onto the bright deck. The slam of the door woke both Jack and Dill at the same time, without her knowing it.

Eva saw men everywhere, doing nothing but finding drunken activity and amusement in the morning sunlight. She could see the lucky Irish coat off to a short distance and smiled with a homely excitement. It had been far too long since she'd been back. But there was something else she was interested in, a test of sorts, something to prove herself to the lazy men wandering about in front of her.

A few of them smiled but she sneered and walk straight ahead, stomping her boots toward the mast. The men were a little more than curious about the heady sword in her hand, the one they recognized as Jack's. She carried it well, having been trained by the same pirate as him, Teague. But it was an odd sight to behold nevertheless and a few of them began laughing out at her.

She spun to the drunken chuckles and growled under her breath with a point of the sword at them.

"Something funny gents?"

They kept on humoring themselves with her until she pressed the end of the blade into one of their chests.

"I said…" her voice loud and beckoning, none too dissimilar from someone else. "…is something funny to ye?"

She had picked up and studied Jack's tone and vocabulary well enough to frighten the man beneath the sword.

"Nothin' lassie."

"_Captain_." She argued with a forceful pinch of the sword into his chest. "That's Captain Marley t' you."

The heavy, dirty man choked on his breath and nodded fast at her. To which she released him and began storming around in a circle at the rest of the still crew. Gibbs stood off at a distance, laughing under his breath at her, well entertained and impressed for that matter.

"Well then, are ye all just going t' stand round and drink yerself onto th' shore today?!"

She heard a few no's, saw a number of shaking heads and even some slow moving feet. Inside she was smiling, and with a step forward to a large huddle of men, she barked out at them.

"Then get t' work! Swing th' lead, ye scurvy dogs!"

Three dozen pairs of haggard legs scrambled to as she neared each of them with the sword and following them until they were all set into work again.

"I want movement, smartly! Th' motherload awaits you rancid bilge rats!"

They worked fast to prepare the boats for shore, grabbing at oars and lines like crazy, in fear for their livelihood. Eva scampered about proudly, tossing Jack's sword with perfect footing in the open air of the fresh Ireland morning. She cackled out with more practiced commands and thrust her tiny, piratical form at as many men as she could to put the fear in them she wanted.

But while this went on, she hadn't taken the time to notice anyone standing at an idle, probing distance. When the crew stilled with a united turn and attended stance, hands raised for salute, she giggled.

"My, my…have I made such a true impression on you men already?"

A loud, throat clearing, attention gaining cough bellowed over her head and her eyes grew wide.

Eva scowled at the men before her with a twist of her brow anxiously.

"Traitors."

She whispered under her breath at them as she felt the sword in her hand torn away. A firm arm wrapped around her waist and lifted her from the deck, the blade sharp at her neck.

"I believe you're impugning me honorable duty, darling."

She smiled against the choke of the sword and the squeeze of his arm as the men chuckled at her.

"What else can I say? I wanted to know what it felt like to crew grown men instead of children."

Jack shook his head with a low laugh and carried her away from the men, and all towards the readied boats.

"Gibbs! Marty! Cotton! We're going ashore!"

The three men scurried close on his heels, anxious to go wherever the treasure and Jack would be.

He looked back before watching Eva descend the ladder for the boats. "Wooden eye and…_friend_ too_._"

Pintel and Ragetti ran ahead and climbed down after Eva and got into the boat with Marty and Gibbs. Jack gave strict orders of the remaining crew, leaving no one in particular in charge, and then descended himself. He slid into the second boat beside Eva, still shaking his head at her but smiling in the process. She grinned nervously with shaking knees as Cotton rowed them away from the Pearl and in the direction of land.

Jack, uncaring of what Cotton couldn't speak against what he saw anyway, brought his hand to lightly clutch onto Eva's trembling knee. She looked up at him innocently.

"Impressive show, _Captain_ Marley."

She bit her lip. "Are you mad? I just wanted to finally show them I wasn't an incompetent island girl."

Jack sighed with a laugh and toyed with her stolen green sash.

"Believe me, anger does not rule me mind at the moment. Something quite th' opposite actually."

Eva turned her eyes up at him with a spirited glow. She saw his light up seductively.

"Aha." She nodded with a giggle as she leaned in to whisper in his ear. "I guess I'll have to remember that for later then?"

"Oh, please do." He nipped back towards her lips before she pulled away, tempting him only further when he saw that she had somehow managed to slip her hand into his coat and snatch the map inside.

Jack laughed and watched her unfold it across her lap.

"Nice lift. _Pirate_."

She smirked and traced the lines on the map she remembered from what seemed so long ago.

"I knew you stole this from the book." Eva looked at him quick. "_Thief_."

"Dare I ask wot' poor soul ye stole it from before me?"

"I bartered it." He tilted his brow with an even more impressed grin. "From a passing sailor in a tavern at the Cove."

"Hmm…" he twisted his dingles and stared at the coming shore. "…barter ye say?"

She could hear the wonderful curiosity in his voice and what path his mind had already headed down.

"Not that kind of barter, I assure you."

"Oh, well…" he chuckled and reached back to pinch her bottom when she yelped. "…I pity th' bloke then."

"Never mind my hobbies in Shipwreck…" she handed him the map, "…I think we should hunt out the fort. It will be in the center of the island, probably hidden well with age."

"Aye, the fort. Th' one her husband built for er'."

Eva caught his eyes in surprise. "You read the book? You didn't tell me that."

"Secret well kept s'all."

She brushed it off with a crooked eye back to the beach as the boats jetting into the wet, mossy rocks. The men jumped out and Jack helped lift Eva out to keep her from having to wade the sloshed shore. He was less than concerned with what any of his best men thought, and even shocked her by twisting his fingers through her hand.

Eva said nothing about it but felt her heart skip a beat at the public gesture. Well, the _somewhat_ public gesture. The Clare Island coast was completely deserted save for the white stones and green sea grass. She could smell the clover growing at a distance as its scent swarmed in the air and she smiled wide with Jack pulling her along.

"We're after a fort mates. Should be stone built, somewhere in this mess o' green."

"Aye, sir." Gibbs nodded up at the high hills.

"Are we splittin' up?"

Jack thought about it with a scratch of his chin and agreed.

"Yeah. Eva an' I will take t' the North end. The lot o' ye follow South."

"And if we come across it?"

"Meet back at th' boats when th' sun hits three o'clock."

They all nodded at him and grabbed some of the supplies and canteens they'd brought. Eva was surprised at Jack's hand still holding her and even squeezing lightly a few times. She watched the other men turn off to the south and felt him tug at her hand, bringing her back to focus.

"Tagging along or sitting this one out, lass?"

She sneered at him with a tight grin.

"As if I would let you find _my _treasure without me."

"Oh…_you're_ treasure o' course. Ow' could I forget that detail?"

"I haven't a clue." Eva twisted her lips at him. "But _don't_ do it again."

He pinched her cheek with his free hand and pulled her down the beach, heading for a fading, aged path that started at the thick grasses. They walked together, pointing out other distant islands on the horizon, or ship roaming on the far hills, or simply laughing at one another's fight for control of the pace. Eva would rip at his arm with all the power in her bones, and then Jack would jeer ahead on the path and nearly tear hers off with twice the force. Eva would try to trip him when he wasn't paying attention, and he would dive feet from the ground, before he rose again and purposefully stamped her boot toe.

It went on for miles of beach and coastal hiking, with playful slaps and tricks, shoving and mocking. And while they were caught up in each other's childish skill, they never even noticed the tall stone tower approaching their walk over the massive hilltop. Eva was walking backwards with an eye watching him after he'd pinched her bottom for the last time, and laughing at the way he talked amorously about his ship, as if it had been born of his own impossible womb, when Jack spotted the fort at the bottom of the hill.

He grinned at her wickedly, trying to decide which view was better, Eva or the castle.

Of course he knew the truth.

"Why are you looking at me like that?"

He gave a corner smirk and nodded behind her. Eva spun back to see the view he'd hidden from her for who knew how long. She stopped dead in her tracks with her hands covering her mouth and eyes wide with excitement. She couldn't breathe or think, but she felt Jack step in behind her and wrapped his arms around her with his chin resting on her shoulder. The sprawling view matched with the warmth of him was enough to kill her.

"I love it when legends turn out t' be true."

She smiled at his voice on her ear and held onto his arms at her waist.

"I'm sure that's what most people say about you."

"Dangerous ground t' flatter a pirate, Eva. But…_your_ legend is fast rushing th' oceans as we speak, m'sure."

She turned in his arms, pulling on his hands as they moved down the hill. Eva whispered back saucily.

"Guess I better do it justice then and find this O'Malley gold, huh?"

He nodded, watching the way her hips shifted in his breeches and her breasts under his shirt. He had to bite his lip just to stay focused long enough to accomplish something for the day. Most of all, Jack was just glad to see she'd gotten her spirit and rebel will back. It's what destroyed him, but it's what he needed of her.

They strolled down the hill as quickly as they could without falling into a tumble together. The fort was larger than any sketch her book had provided, but the detail of a the black water surrounding it was true, as well as the thick grass and half dark, half brightened skies above. The tall, cylindrical castle was magnificent, and even more so when they actually made it to the level of the windows and doors. Eva stared up at it in utter wonderment, drawn in like a child living out a fantasy and Jack adored the smiles it left on her face.

They investigated the entire outer property of it, testing its limits to the water and coast, until the air started to get wet and cold in the lower valley and Eva began shivering. Jack pulled inside the castle through one of the cracking old wooden doors and held her close to him in the equally cold, dark stone fortress. Her teeth began to chatter as she clung to him tight.

"How…did it…g-get…s-s-so cold…s-so fast?"

He laughed at her and tore his coat off to wrap it around her. He stepped back with his arms around her too, pressing her into the nearest wall and pressing his body into hers for the extra heat. Every muscle in her body shook and vibrated as she whispered with a stutter still in his ear.

"I b-bet I…know a b-b-better way…for y-you to warm m-me up…"

Jack sighed with his nose and lips lost in her hair as he rubbed her body through the clothes fiercely, trying to make as much heat as he could. He knew exactly what was in her head, because it had been in his all day.

"Wot' way is that?" He teased as she gripped him to her harder.

"Don't p-p-patronize me, J-Jack."

He brushed his lips with a warm blow on her neck and jaw, bringing them down to cover her trembling mouth.

"Fine then. I'll just have me wicked way with ye. Right here…right _now_…"

His breath against her lips when he claimed them was nearly enough to kill Eva. As cold as she was, she was on fire within seconds, as Jack rushed around with buttons and ties and anything other barriers to the moment he could feel in the dark fort. He forced her harder into the wall with every movement he made and she started to feel dizzy, as if the walls were moving under her.

"God, I've wanted t' touch ye so badly…" He grunted with a passionate kiss on the corner of her mouth as he pulled his hardened flesh from his pants and ground into her thigh roughly. His hands stroked through her long hair, with his hearty mouth tasting every bit of her freed skin.

But Eva still trembled at the sensation that the ground beneath her was shifting and the walls fading away. Had she said something or headed what she thought was her imagination, she might not have felt Jack falling into her hard a moment later, only to then find her feet and body tilting backwards as she screeched.

"Ah, Jack!"

He held her body in his arms and fell with her, grunting as they tumbled through the shifting stones of the wall and fell to harsh, dirty, and cold grounding a good ten feet below. Jack blocked the back of her head from hitting the ground and instead let his knuckles scrape it and bleed. Eva breathed heavily underneath him as the dust from the fallen stones cleared around the, and coughed as she heard Jack's voice soft above her.

"Eva, are ye okay?"

She nodded against his hands as she felt him patting her legs and arms.

"Nothing urt'?"

"No. No I'm fine." She reached under her head for his hand, concerned when she held it up in the grey light of the sectioned off tunnel. "You're bleeding."

"Eh, that's nothing." He crawled off of her so she could breathe and sit up.

When she had though, as she found his arm to cling to beside her again, she stopped to see what surrounded them. And while part of her wanted to fall into the deep room before her and investigate what she knew it must be, another part of her fought back and gulped in fear.

"Jack…is _this_…?"

She didn't get to finish the statement before she saw his head nodding fiercely in front of her.


	20. Devil's Dance Floor

**

* * *

**

Devil's Dance Floor

* * *

_Over the fields and across the moor  
I ran in the house and slammed the door.  
What the hell's that over there?  
A putrefying corpse sitting in that chair  
Where no one ever wants to go_

-**Down in the Ground Where the Dead Men Go **by _The Pogues_-

* * *

"We're in a--" Eva immediately jumped up from the wet and cold ground when she realized the truth of the matter. Her bones were already shaking from the chill, but it worsened as she stood off in a corner, trying not to turn back around to the scene.

Jack was too curious though; too foolish an explorer for his own good. He crawled from the ground and slowly walked down into the darker bend of the stone vault. There were two broad and unlit torches to either side of the hazy arch leading below, and he grabbed at one. Eva turned her eyes back just enough to see him hunting the straw covered ground for something to light it with. It was she though, that noticed a ancient piece of flint under her boot, and wearily carried it to him.

"H-here." She chattered as he stood tall again and smiled at the stone in her hand.

Jack worked to scrape it along the stone wall for a few moments as Eva remained idly nearby, her eyes wide and ready for something bad to happen, for a ghost to react to their visit. He smirked as he watched her from the corner of his eye and managed to faintly light the weeded torch in his hand.

"Going down with me, darlin'?"

She carefully turned to him, struck with fear and shook her head no.

"Sure?"

"As s-sure as ever. I have n-no intention of w-waking the d-dead."

Jack smiled and tore his coat off to drape it around her trembling body. He left a warm kiss on her forehead before turning away with the flame lighting his path downward.

"B-be careful, J-Jack…"

Her voice echoed through the tunneled passage and resonated something deep in him, something he was still trying to hide from himself. He was too afraid to turn and find her blue eyes in the dark, so he kept walking and waved over his head.

Eva on the other hand, stood in place, watching the orange glow fade further and further from her, leaving her alone in the grey cold. There was no sound but her own boots crunching on the straw ground and her heart beating wildly as her eyes shifted around the space. Everything stilled when the flame was half out of sight and she breathed deep, trying to calm herself. And it was almost working, until she heard a whining cry behind her and turned. The second she did, a screeching black object flew directly at her face and swiped across her dark curls in a flash.

She screamed and it echoed, making Jack halt in the passage. He was ready to spin on his heels and run back to her, and he would have, if Eva hadn't beaten him to the punch and start barreling through the stone tunnel herself.

"Jack…" she cried, finding the torchlight and running directly into his back, her arms wrapped around him tight.

He laughed a little and glanced back down the space to see a tiny bat perched with swollen red eyes in the high mineralized corner. With his free hand from the torch he stroked her hair and kissed the top of her head.

"She can slay a crew o' Navy officers, but she can't tolerate a curious bat in a tomb," Jack teased in her ear. "Miss Marley, it seems I've finally found th' Achilles heel I was so sure you had in ye."

"I don't like dead, _eerie_ things."

Jack laughed and wrapped his arm firmly about her waist as he walked her down the lit passageway. Eva kept her face buried in his chest though, not looking up and not wanting to see what might arrive the further they disappeared below the ground.

"I'll keep you safe from th' ghosts love."

"Don't say that." She squeezed him tighter as they strolled. "Don't give them a reason to come about."

"Not even yer dear Gracie?"

"Especially _her_. We'll never see daylight again."

His laugh continued darkly as the inner walls of the crypt went on the same, freezing into their bones the lower they got. Even when they came to a thick wooden doorway at the end of the tunnel, Eva clung to Jack and never let her eyes drift higher than his neckline. He pushed back the door and carried her down a dozen stone steps within. Somehow impossibly, they could both hear the ocean and smell its rainy mist when they made it to another dirty, ground level cave.

Jack set Eva back down on her boots and looked at her with an odd twist of his brow and lip as they examined the new space. There were stony sectors across the walls and beds of straw covering them each. And it was Jack alone who first noticed in the dim light what resided in the straw patchwork, a skeleton. He pulled Eva away from it though, before she could see or faint.

"How can the water be so close this far below ground?"

Jack didn't have an answer for her, not until he stepped across open space to where a faint blue light came in from between the cracks of piled rocks. He moved a couple, then a few more, until the light grew brighter and filled the tomb. And when he looked through the holed window he had created, he could not only hear the ocean as if he was swimming in it, but he could very nearly touch it. The cold black waves of the bay came right up to the pit of the crypt. He smiled at the sight, at how magnificent a thing it was and a way to be buried for all of time. Before he could fully relish in it though, he heard Eva gasp from behind and turned back.

"Wot' is it?"

"Look, up there…" she pointed to a higher rift in the stone wall where a cobalt gleam had arrived with the reflection of the daylight from between the rocks. "What is that glow?"

"Don' know." He replied meekly with a narrowed, thinking gaze upward. There was no way to reach it on his own legs, nor was there anything to stand upon. But he quickly realized he needed neither device, when he devilishly smiled down at Eva.

"What?"

He said nothing and instead came around her from behind and snatched her into his arms. She screeched in shock and struggled against his hold as he held her high up and moved toward the glowing ceiling again.

"Put me down!"

"Relax, you're fine. Reach for whate'er it is."

"Jack…" she argued and grasped two jutting stones in the wall to hold her balance in his arms. She could barely see over the high cleft, but pulled herself up to catch the sparkle that matched her eyes. Her jaw dropped at the sight of a massive, hidden sapphire awaiting her capture.

"Well," Jack grunted, holding onto her legs, "Anything o' interest?"

She giggled under her breath, the fear in her completely diminished by wonderment. "You could say that."

Eva carefully lifted the palm sized gem and tucked it into the inner pocket of Jack's coat for safe keeping. And when she patted the space in the wall again to make sure she wasn't leaving anything of worth behind, she instead found only a scrap of parchment, long since abandoned same as the prize. She grabbed it too and held on as Jack gently replaced her feet to the ground beside him.

"What did ye find up there?"

She grinned wickedly up at him and drew back the side of his coat around her body to allow him access to the pocket. "Look in there."

His brow was twisted in novelty as he held her eyes with his and drove his hand within. It wasn't more than a second later that felt the smooth and solid exterior of what felt like a huge rock. He lifted it out and his jaw dropped in more ways than one, as his eyes darted from the massive gem, to Eva's similarly dark blue eyes and then back again.

"And there was this. A note."

"A note? Wot's it say?"

Eva turned her eyes down to the scratched words of old and began to softly repeat them aloud.

"He who hath entered here is of the brave lot to the world. A _Clare_ sapphire is all that resides in this crypt for the taking. Any further the hunt and one must discover the impudence to risk themselves further…"

She looked up at him with a nervous gleam in her eye and Jack held her cheek in his palm to soothe her as she went on.

"…_Grace O' Malley's triumph hides where the clovers do not grow and where only her bones rest. It is where the cold winds of Galway meet the uncommonly warm breezes that arise from the winter Atlantic. There is no marking to ensure your unearthing of this place, and to find it truly, one must be confident in their knowledge of these spell ridden lands. For the hex cannot be broken of the wealth, until the last child of the first blacks has had their say."_

They stared at one another for a long time after that, each of them independently searching for clues in their minds. Eva came to no conclusion whatsoever. Jack however found a million hints within his memory. He determined he'd known it all along, the truth, the real reason Eva had been so utterly fascinated with this treasure hoard and its meaning. It was something deep down inside of her, something she couldn't see and he was just beginning to.

He returned the gem back to the coat pocket against her side and took her hand softly in his, leading her out of the bottomless pit and back up the stairwell from whence they came. Lost in his thoughts, he said nothing, not even when she questioned him.

"Jack, what does it all mean? Where do you think it is? And who is this black child?"

He had answers, dozens of them, but didn't know where to begin. So instead he carried her back through the darkened tunnel, this time with only the faint grey light leading them as he'd forgotten the torch in his dash.

"What are you rushing for?!" She demanded nervously as they made their way through the last archway again and toward the cracked stone wall they had first fallen through. "Jack!"

He stopped when he felt safe to from his mind and carefully held her at the wall, watching the way her blue eyes sparkled against a sea of black hair and ivory olive skin. It meant too much and not enough all at once. The evidence filtered throughout his head, everything he could remember from the first moment he'd seen her in that alley.

"We need t' get back to th' boats."

Eva didn't trust the wily, almost frightened expression he had. She held his face in her hands for a moment.

"What is it? What is that look in your eyes for?"

Jack sighed and pressed his forehead to hers, their eyes still matching for control of the situation.

"Tell me what you've thought of. _Please_."

He wanted to, truly, and knew he would, but he needed reclusiveness with her first. He needed to know that their conversation was safe from the ears of the living and the dead alike.

"Let's get back t' the _Pearl_ for now."

"And then you'll tell me?"

He nodded and she pulled his face down to kiss him quickly, warmly. He felt a little bit more of him die inside when she did too. It would be a good death though; an ever changing, transforming death of one side and the birth of another. It's all he could think about too, as they made their way hand in hand through the drizzling island rain for the boats.

The rocky beach though, when they made it there, was still deserted save for the boats. Jack could see through the clouds that the sun was already well past four, making him and Eva an hour late to meet with the other men.

"Do you think they got lost?"

"Doubt it."

"Do you think they found something?"

He shrugged and walked her toward the boats, but they hadn't made it four steps down the grey shore before they heard a set of guns clicking behind them. Jack squeezed Eva's hand tight as his body stiffened.

"Halt, Sparrow!"

"Don't move!"

Eva's eyes shifted from the sand back over her shoulder at the troupe of red coats leaping at them. One large man grabbed hold of Jack's right arm and ripped his right hand out of hers.

"Jack, no!"

"Eva!"

He struggled against the man and shouted her name the same, but it did nothing.

"Let him go!"

The lead officer came to Eva and wrapped his arm firmly about her waist, never noticing the lump of the sapphire in Jack's coat she wore.

"Come Miss Marley, you're safe now."

"Get your hands off 'er…"

"No…no, let me go! Jack didn't do anything to me!"

They were separated fast and carried down the beach at different rates toward a large Company ship anchored in the black water. Eva caught small glimpses of Jack through the officer's surrounding her, and she shouted out his name, begging for them to let her go free and insisting all the way to their ship that he was innocent. Jack could hear it all, and although he tried his damndest to get free of their hold on him and the irons breaking his wrists when he writhed, none of it matter and her voice only made it a more haunting experience.


	21. The Space Between

**

* * *

**

**The Space Between**

**

* * *

**

_How could I be such a fool like me?  
I let you down  
Tail between my legs  
I'm a puppy for you, love._

_Forgive me  
I let you down._

-**Let You Down** by Dave Matthews Band-

* * *

Two nights rolled by with haste, as the company ship Eva had learned was so named the _HMS Alexandria_, journeyed back around the Irish coast and eventually docked in London as the sun sank down on the impossibly smoky horizon. She hadn't known a place could be so dark or sinister, and her mind rushed with the confusion of why Daniel had always made this land seem so spectacular. The water was an icy black, the stars were hidden by clouds of dust, and she could only see buildings, for miles and miles, as she looked out of the window to Admiral Compton's cabin.

She had thought of Jack for too many hours, dreamt of him cold and alone while she was in a stranger's clean, unruffled bed, and cried herself awake each morning when she tried not to imagine what sort of conditions he was in down below the ship. She had gotten bits of information about the trial he was set to undergo towards death once they arrived in London, but the men that did speak with her, kept much of it a Company secret.

Jack would hang for his crimes though. For this was a final win in their eyes.

Very little time passed by as they anchored the ship into port, before the door swung open to the cabin and Eva's salted tears were wiped away with the sight of Daniel storming inside towards her.

"Evangeline…_darling_…"

He was gasping for breath as he came close and bundled her into his arms, stroking her hair back as she cried into his coat. Despite what he thought though, she wasn't crying for her renewed haven or for seeing him again.

"Oh my dear, you're safe here now. Just as I always promised." He kissed the top of her head as he lifted her into his arms and carried her out of the cabin. "I'm going to see to it that you're taken care of, and that Sparrow is slaughtered for what he's done to you."

This made her cry deeper as she clung to his neck, still wearing Jack's shirt, coat and a pair of borrowed Company breeches. Daniel carried her across the ship slowly, easing toward the gangplank when there was a bellowing argument, shouts and the sound of boots stomping against wood. He turned with Eva in his arms, to see two officers pulling the criminal back up from the brig to the deck. Jack flung about in the men's arms, wincing away the short lived pain of the cinching iron on his wrists when he saw Daniel ahead of him with Eva wrapped in his arms.

He writhed like a wild animal, one that had been locked away in the dark without food or drink for far too long. He grunted and shouted out as Eva tried to turn her head back.

"You can't ave' her, Bryant, you bastard! She doesn't want you!"

Shuddering at the noise and angry tone, Daniel pushed Eva's face back down to his shoulder and turned away. He drifted with her in his arms as she struggled to get a view of Jack's face, pulling at Daniel's neck to see over his shoulder and head with tears streaming in her eyes when she heard his growling continue louder, the farther Daniel walked away with her.

"Eva! Damnit no….Eva!"

"Jack!"

She wiggled harder against the hold on her body when she could see Jack's eyes, filled with pain and guilt and passionate determination for her. It made her twice as strong as she called out his name. And before Daniel had stepped down on the first board of the plank, Eva managed to push her way out of his arms, landing on her knees before gaining a fierce footing and running back up the deck of the ship to where they were pulling on Jack.

"Let him go, please!" She cried out, reaching for his hand the moment that Daniel made it to the scene and forced her into his arms again. "No…_Jack_…"

"You're fine, Eva. I'll get t' you again!"

He shouted back at her with another tired grunt against the chains and men's hands on him. He began giving into the pressure of his place, watching Daniel gain speed from the deck again, and recognizing nothing but confusion and agony in Eva's eyes; the first he'd seen of them in two long days.

This stopped his fighting against the men and instead they just pulled his limp form. He could only focus on her eyes as they were lowered down the gangplank opposite him, her arms lost somewhere in his borrowed coat still, digging at another man's neck to see only him, for the last time.

* * *

Hours dwelled by like nothing at all. Nothing but time wasted.

Eva had been bundled in a carriage against her will and might, driven with Daniel and his cousin, the Admiral Compton who had brought her to him. They moved her quickly into Daniel's brick-stone house near the long tidal end of London and helped her to get situated as best they could for the night.

She didn't speak and stayed in a room far too large and extravagant for comfort. Silk covered the windows, the bed, the walls in heavy cloaks, keeping as much of the foggy moonlight out as possible. And Eva never shut her eyes. She could only think about the chains that she had witnessed cutting into Jack's skin, and the men who threw him around like he was some kind of a wild heathen-like creature meant for a quick disposal. She cried into the satin pillows and refused to sleep in the beautiful hand-sewn chemise that had been set out for her. She only wanted Jack's shirt against her skin, as dirty and well worn as it was for two long nights, it still smelled of his toxic scent.

She clung to it with desperation and burning tears until she watched the morning grey light rise through the curtains. It was ugly, the light in this place, too dark and too foreboding. It was nothing like the light she'd seen on the _Pearl_.

The morning began once the household staff determined she was awake. They moved into her room at Daniel's request, and began to clean and straighten up things that had never even been touched. Maids assisted in giving her a bath in warm lilac soap. A dress maker had arrived during the course of the mayhem and spent hours marking Eva's every curve and size. And although Daniel had snatched away Jack's coat and shirt from her in all of this, Eva had made sure to already hide the sapphire rock from Ireland as well as the riddling note she longed to still solve.

"Have you any colors you'd prefer Miss Marley?"

She hadn't been focused on the woman tailoring her fit, but turned at the question with a soft tear in her eye and whispered down at the elder woman.

"Blue."

'_You ave' the most beautiful blue eyes. They sink me like a stone in th' ocean…'_

She pushed Jack from her mind as best she could and focused on nothing at all.

The day only continued to pass though, as jewelers and shoe makers arrived one by one, tending to her every desire and preference. She gave nods of approval for colors and gems, satins, silks, cottons, and patterns alike. Nothing had ever come so quickly in life before as the settlement Daniel was providing her. Hours had only come and gone since she'd been carried ashore and already the town was being forced upon her. Already, he was making her a home.

And as she sat in the parlor in the early evening, staring out of the window, bound to perfection in one of the temporary blue frocks made for her, she heard him step in through the doors quietly and sit beside her on another chair. Daniel said nothing at first, and only gawked at her uncompromising beauty as the purple light danced on her gently heaving chest and her tiny hands on her lap.

When he thought of what best to say, he came to sit on the padded stool in front of her chair and took her hands between his. Her face turned to him, lonely, tired and cold.

"Evangeline, you haven't spoken all day. Have I offended you with my offerings?"

She didn't know what to say, because her only planned defense involved physical pain and escape. Two things she knew weren't going to work.

"Tell me what it is; tell me what I can do to make you happy again. I fear your time spent with that _rogue_ has soured your lovely spirit."

He sneered down at his own slight mention of Jack, while she held back her temper with a bite of her tongue.

"I'm sorry, I don't mean it to sound crude, your spirit is delightful always, but your presence seems…_disturbed_. I can blame no one but him, you understand."

Eva just stared at Daniel with tight eyes as he stroked her hands and cheek.

"If you only knew how much I adore you, how much I love you, Evangeline."

She sighed meekly and finally replied.

"Why do you?"

He gulped, put off suddenly and confused by her defiant eyes.

"Why do I love you so? How can you question such a certain, glorious thing? You are everything to me, Eva. Everything I ever wanted in the world."

"The whole world, Daniel?"

Eva's tone was cynical and unconvinced.

"Yes." He stammered with a final touch of her cheek. "The whole of this great world. Of all the women, you are what I am solely after. You are the one I want with me forever."

"_I swim through a sea of names an' pretty faces and still I only want t' think o' yours."_

The words so closely resembled Jack's speech, the one of two weeks prior, that she was thwarted with horror. Her hands trembled in Daniel's as she gazed out the window again, letting whatever necessary pain dwell as the tears slid down her cheeks.

"Again, I seem to have done nothing but insult you. Only, I don't understand why."

Eva gulped back a hard rush of tears, kept her focus on the docked ships a few blocks from the house and spoke.

"You want to keep me here."

Daniel nodded, "I want to keep you safe, yes."

"And you'll never again let me sail, or do as I wish."

She wasn't asking questions but making clear, understood statements. Eva seemed to need his agreement though.

"The sea is not a safe place. I would have thought this misadventure with that thief had taught you as much."

"Jack's not a thief."

At this she turned back to him angrily.

"He stole you from your bed while you slept, Eva."

She shook her head fiercely at him.

"Yes, love he did. My crew saw him at the docks in Shipwreck. He robbed you in the night and sailed away to take you as his own." Daniel fought through her anger with his hands soft on her neck and hands and arms. "I have not stopped wondering how or what he must have done to you. Are you hurt badly?"

Eva pushed his hands away and stood up to walk to the opposite side of the room.

"He didn't hurt me. Jack would _never_ hurt me."

Her livid tone did nothing but make him stand and follow after her in disagreement.

"You know not what you speak of, sweet. He's a scoundrel, who I assure you…" Daniel stepped in behind her at the window, caressing her arms. "…would have taken advantage if given the opportunity. I can only rest easy now, knowing that my prayers kept you safe until my cousin retrieved you."

She growled softly in his hands and wiggled away to turn around and look up at him irritably.

"You came to dinner at Teague's, you met Jack there, and yet you think him so terrible a person. He meant no harm to me, ever."

"Just as well, it's best you're here now, out of the dangerous ways of those pirates."

She could have easily hit him, hurt him, and run away. But she just stared at him angrily.

"Eva, please let me make you happy. Please, I beg only that of you."

"How will you do that now, Daniel?"

He pulled her to him against her will and brought his lips down to softly kiss her forehead.

"Let me make you my wife. Let me take care of you always and give you all the things you desire."

She breathed deep to think that she desired only things Daniel had cut her off from.

"I want to make you _mine, _Evangeline."

His words echoed the ones Jack had shouted to her days before and she shivered against Daniel's lips, avoiding the truth in his cold kiss. Her mind rushed with fast plotting, a trait she'd lifted from only one man. And when he leaned back to smile at her, Eva could only scowl harshly and answer.

"I have one condition for all you ask of me."

"What?" He begged quickly. "Tell me what you wish and it's done."

* * *

He could feel her all over him even though it had been three long days and two tragic nights. He could feel her breath on his every pore, consuming him with fiery oxygen. He could feel her nails scratching down his stomach, his back, arms, neck and legs. He could feel her lips in places that ached for her and it ruined his mind.

Jack lay in the corner of his more spacious cell, staring up at the stones of the ceiling. He watched as a trickle of rain run-off danced on the black mineral and eventually came to hit the straw dusted ground at his sides. His stomach growled with hunger, and he couldn't decide if it was from lack of food or from lack of Eva. He rubbed his chest and gut lightly and sat up when he heard the ever creaking door of the prison with a jingle of keys at a distance.

His eyes were stationed on the bars of the cell, waiting with restricted patience as he saw the two finely polished leather shoes, matched with proper stockings, step in front of the iron gate. He thought meekly of the first time he'd seen Will step in front of a cell to rescue him, and how the stockings had made him laugh. Jack wasn't laughing this time.

He looked up and saw the face of his impossible competition.

"Sparrow."

His voice was loose and uncertain, as if he didn't know what he was doing down there.

Jack winced with an upturned lip and watched as Daniel unlocked the cell, stepped inside and threw his coat at him. A few nervous officers stood idly by, but he shooed them with reassurance of Jack's harmlessness, having very little idea of what he actually _could_ do to him with bare hands. Jack resisted though, curious by the actuality of his being here rather than with Eva. And in his once lent coat as he lifted it, he could smell the sweetness of her body and it killed him.

"Although I myself find doubt in your good intentions for existence, Evangeline begs assurance that you are an honest man."

He smiled, but only in his mind. His face was stern and silent otherwise as he stood and leaned on the bars with his back to Daniel.

"I realize you are headily wanted for treason and theft, pillaging and a dozen other _hobbies_ of your kind, so I will make this a matter of only that which I've made a promise to."

His face turned a little, but Jack masked his interest well. Daniel stood and walked closer with a deep, almost annoyed tone at what he was coming to the conclusion of.

"Eva has pledged to take my hand, on the sole condition that…" a long sigh, "…well, that I find manner to release you back to your wretched ways."

Jack eyes became slits of worse disgust, his heart ravaging from the inside out as his skin crawled with the words. She'd surrendered herself again, this time accomplishing the feat without his input. She was going to marry the bastard to ensure his own freedom, same as she'd planned to do in Shipwreck for Teague and Lizzie.

He growled and turned instantly.

"I will do anything to make her happy. And letting you go will be easy for me because of it."

"An' the King is aware o' this decision?"

Daniel turned his eyes upward with an anxious breath.

"The King expects your own escape as much. It will be taken as nothing more or less."

"Where th' hell will I go, but into th' city to be caught by more officers?"

"Ah yes, that…" Daniel waltzed about for a moment before pulling open the cell door and catching Jack's gaze wildly, "…I believe I saw a ship with brooding sails of black hanging in the midst of the East docks this morning." He laughed and Jack's mind rushed in haunting confusion. "It seems you have quite a loyal pack of men in your following. Says a lot about you, Sparrow, despite what I've previously determined."

"So I go without barricade or alarm?"

Daniel nodded wistfully and gestured for Jack to step out of the cell.

"And I make Evangeline mine, _alone_…for good."


	22. Coming to Terms

**

* * *

**

Coming to Terms

* * *

_Oh precious little thing  
With eyes that dance around  
Without their clothes._

_'Cause I feel just like a map  
Without a single place to go of interest  
And I'm further north and south.  
If I could shut my mouth  
She'd probably like this._

-**My Winding Wheel** by Ryan Adams-

* * *

He sailed away free and clear of all the things that had bound him to London, the chains, the jail, the officers demands for Daniel Bryant to put him on trial despite his love's wishes. Jack had found haven in the Pearl, and his crew, the one that had impressed him with their loyalty beyond all belief. Gibbs had been waiting for him with pride and a strong embrace.

And they sailed away, all of them free criminals again thanks to Eva.

Despite it though, they only made it as far as Tortuga before they docked. It burdened Jack's every thought, every minute of the days and nights they travelled, to think of her sacrifice, another one. He couldn't come to terms with why someone like Evangeline, someone who so desired freedom and independence and the seas, wanted so badly to rescue everyone with her own surrender.

And because he couldn't figure it out, he drank until he thought he did. But he still didn't.

"Another one. Stronger this time."

Jack slammed his fist against the bar, ignoring the calls of women and sailors alike behind him. Gibbs' constant interest, Mary, the owner of _The Salty Tusk _tavern, could only smile knowingly at something she saw in her dear old friend's eye and fill up another tankard for him.

"Who or wot' ye drowning away now, Jack?"

She asked sweetly as he looked up with a shake of his head.

"Nothing but nothing."

"Always nothing. Fer twenty years s'been nothing."

"Ready yerself for another twenty too, Mary."

She laughed heartily and leaned over the bar, her large breasts nearly spilling out.

"Rumor is ye stormed out o' London. Now whatever would tempt ye of all men, t' risk those shores?"

"Me own masochistic nature, perhaps."

Her smile twisted as she wiped the wooden ledge of the bar and filled a few other glasses nearby.

"Rumors are rumors ere' though."

He nodded and gulped a mouthful of rum. "Aye."

"So m' left t' wonder what really led ye thar'?"

Her Irish croon inspired his mind, thinking of the green shores of Ireland and the black haired, blue eyed demon who kept his body burning all these miles beyond where she lay. Eva was one of _them_, and it had taken him all this time to officially accept it. She was half Irish born, dark as the night and blue as the ocean, and he knew exactly what that all meant but was loathing to follow through with anything that would risk her safety by using it to advantage.

Jack relaxed on his boot heels at the bar and gazed back at Mary, delighted by her interest in his sharing, but only half as interested in the actual sharing.

"Wot' is it Jack? Gold? A ship? A little lass ye can't seem t' let unravel from yer finger?"

He chuckled at her deeply and sighed before replying.

"All of th' aforementioned. An' it's killing me."

"I don't doubt that. Killing ye is easy an' has been fully accomplished before."

The thought of Lizzie sprang to him for a moment and he laughed.

"Why's this one different?"

"Why not?" He responded mockingly, making Mary smile. "She's th' last source of pure oxygen in this world."

"Ah, one o' those…"

"Yeah." He sneered with a sip of the rum. "One o' those blasted set o' legs."

"Does yer demon girl ave' a name?"

He groaned at the thought of speaking it, but nodded. "_Evangeline Marley_, Goddess o' Confusion."

Mary laughed richly and slid a fresh glass of rum to Jack before relaxing in front of him at the bar again.

"She Irish?"

"Yeah. Dark girl with blue eyes that seem t' drown the weak."

He pointed to himself and a look of strange interest came to Mary's eyes, the same look Jack had gotten when Teague brought up an idea in his study a month before.

"Black Irish eh…real trouble for ye there, Jack."

"Don't I know it."

"_Real_ trouble. But could be elpful' all the same."

"Wot' do ye mean?"

She traced over the wet rings from his glasses and divulged to tell him everything she knew of her homeland.

"A lot o' those black ones ave' these otherworldly gifts, if ye will."

He looked at her in concentrated fear.

"Tricks an' the like. Nothing too dangerous, just curious."

"Curiosity is wot' usually kills me."

"Which is why she as' ye sailing all the way back ere' to ask me for help."

He smirked slightly and drank more as he listened to her soft voice above the crowds.

"Gibbs says yer after that O'Malley oard'. Clare Island?"

"Yeah."

"Ironic then, that this girl o' yours is wot' she seems t' be. Grace O'Malley had a secret son the same."

"The same as wot', Eva? A dark one?"

Mary nodded. "Grace was in love with one o' the blacks who came o'er from Spain. As far as I know by rumored tales from ome', she birthed a son quietly o' the same black blood. He was said t' have been the last of the pure blooded ones, but who really knows…"

Jack thought of the sapphire gem, same as Eva's eyes. He thought of the note, the one that had warned of a treasure's discovery, only by the consent of the last of the Black Irish. Could that be Eva?

"So Eva could be related t' him?"

"Could be, the connections o' the black Irish are few an' far between now. If she is one, then th' chances o' such are as good as the rum I serve."

He chuckled briefly and turned his face down, thinking more about Eva as herself and what she meant to him, than any sort of connection she could have to Grace O'Malley. He needed her badly, more badly than he'd ever needed anything or anyone in the whole of his life. He burned for her like a flame in a toxic, twisted sea. Eva was his energy, the only fresh breath he'd truly taken before. She was the world that had forever been crumbling under his boots.

"Wot' are ye doing ere' when the answer t' your problems is right where ye left it?"

Jack looked up from his thoughts to catch Mary's sparkling green eyes, the only trustworthy ones he'd ever known in all of Tortuga. She was right.

"If th' damned lass is in London, then don't ye think it's where ye ought t' be?"

"Easier plotted than accomplished, dear Mary."

"Oh you better ave' a good reason for that assumption Jack, or I'll be kicking ye back t' the Pearl meself."

He shook his head and finished off his last pint of rum.

"She's th' reason I'm even able t' sit here free tonight."

Mary eyed him confusingly.

"She sacrificed herself t' this fluty, cotton merchant for my release from the British Navy's prison."

At this Mary laughed a little, accepting it as one of Jack's great tales.

"Quite a lass t' do that for a man like ye."

"A foolish lass, but a good one all th' same, yes."

"Is a marriage t' come o' this trade?"

"I don't doubt it's already come an' gone in me time spent ere'."

Mary stood tall again shaking her head down at him.

"Ye left er' there to find out alone, did ye?"

He gulped nervously and rose at her level from the other side of the bar.

"I left her there t' serve her desired sentence."

"Desired? Or _hopeful_?"

"Hopeful o' what? Permanency? No doubt of that."

"No." Mary grabbed his arm quick across the counter and pulled him to come close to her serious eyes. "Hopeful of ye doing in return wot' she did for ye. She saves you from your cell an' you save er' from the one this gents' got er' in. Tell me ye didn't think o' that?"

His eyes widened with the understanding of what he managed to ruin out of his own subtle ignorance. He hadn't seen it, or thought it at all. His heart had been so confounded in stress and confusion at Daniel Bryant's easy release of him from prison that he'd never thought to justify some hidden point of Eva's beneath it all.

Jack leaned back away from Mary's eyes and forceful smile to catch his balance. He nodded to her and quietly but hastily turned back into the middle of the tavern, searching out Gibbs in the crowd of drunks and half nude women. When he found his old friend swooning with a lapful of girls and two fistfuls of rum, he grabbed him and gave call for the rest of his crew in the bar.

"Wot' in mother's name, Jack? Wot's going on nah?"

He pulled Gibbs along with a sneaky, knowing smile at Mary before they left the tavern.

"We ave' to turn around an' go back."

"Why?"

He sighed and quickened his pace for the Pearl in the night. "I ave' a debt needs repaying still in London."

* * *

**London – one week later**

* * *

"Have you anything 'borrowed', Miss?"

Eva sat with a twisted brow, tears welling deep in her eyes and shaking knees before the vanity, looking back into the glass to see her gifted maid, Annabelle, smiling kindly. She only nodded and reached her hand into a drawer on the table, pulling out an old white ribbon, one she'd borrowed from Elizabeth the day before Jack had taken her from the Cove.

She held it up over her head as Annabelle took it and began weaving it into the masterpiece of dark hair she'd created. With a final bow at the curling end of her neck, the older woman glanced into the mirror again.

"And wot' of blue?"

"Something blue?"

"Yes. I'm sure I can find something if ye can't."

"No." Eva replied soundly and rose to walk toward her bedside table. She carefully removed the necklace Jack had given her and returned, placing it into Anna's hand. "Something blue rather than pearls."

The woman nodded and draped it against her neck, careful not to damage her perfect hair. The stone was a focal point, gleaming brighter than anything Daniel had ever bought her and making her smile for the first time in three weeks.

"You look all too lovely for words."

Eva grinned tightly, not sure how much emotion she wanted to show and stood up again to fuss with the mass of silk and beading on her skirts.

"Thank you, Annabelle. I think I'll just need a few moments to myself."

"Of course, Miss."

She ducked out of the room with a few of Eva's dirty linens and shut the door. Annabelle wasn't gone five minutes though, before she suddenly burst right back in with a confused but curious smile on her face and a sizeable package in her arms.

"One last thing. Margaret found this on th' front step naught' of an hour ago. Seems someone sent it for you alone."

Eva looked at the rather flat object, bound loosely in a dark cloth and tied with a blue ribbon. She wasn't sure what to expect, but gently took it and moved back to the window seat as Anna left again. She sat it down upon a few pillows, realizing it was heavier than it had looked, and tore off the ribbon and cloth to make the tragic reveal.

It was a book. Not just any book of course, but a book about a woman, a pirate, who never let anyone stand her in her way of the sea, or happiness, or anything she truly wanted. It was a book about a woman who was stronger than she had proven herself to be; a woman who hadn't sacrificed everything for nothing at all really. Grace O'Malley's story had never looked so inviting and so wonderful to her before that moment.

Eva's tears fell heavy and quick across the leather sheen of the book's cover. She grasped it with both arms and hugged the large binding to her chest, resting her chin on it as she looked down through the window's glittering panels. Below, in the back of her new home, was a wedding ceremony to end all of them. A hundred or more souls walked about in fine dress and tapered suits, clinking glasses with laughter and thrill, waiting for a show.

And all she could do was curse her sign; Jack's sign.

"You bastard…" she cried with a whisper, tossing the book onto the floor harshly the moment she realized the book's power in her hands. The power to remember too much.

But as she moved to stand and walk for the door, ready to get everything over with and follow through with what she'd chosen to keep him safe, she saw something sticking out from the book. She knelt down in her white gown, throwing back the cover and reaching for the slip of parchment that lay with a flattened rose.

It had hardly browned at all and she breathed in its fresh sweetness with more tears and a growl for what he'd done. She didn't like that he'd been here all of an hour before, had dropped this off to drive her madder, or that he was still in London at all. Everything she'd given up for his safety, his freedom, and still he lingered somewhere dangerously.

"Greedy fool."

She shook her head and began peeling open the paper, creased with wax. Words flowed over the rough parchment like a novel, words that she never knew someone like Jack could have in him, luring her to them instantly.

* * *

_**Evangeline,**_

_**You beautiful fool. I wonder briefly, does your gentleman keeper sit by **__**and watch you drink yourself into such a stupor as to come up with irrational plans and compromises? **__**He must be London's own idiot to have fallen for your ruse, yet indeed he can't be as gullible as I though, right?**_

She found herself giggling away her tears, unexpectedly. They'd branded each other with the same insult.

_**Never mind his capacity for intelligence or mockery of his stance in society. ****I am writing this for you alone. ****My reasons are limited by the pain in my gut from what will be alcohol poisoning by week's end ****and the ache I feel in my heart just knowing you're trapped in something impossible. ****You're a caged bird, same as you were mine once. The only difference being, that I fear you won't sing ever again.**_

Her heart pounded as she heard a band of violins strike up below and she grasped the paper harsher to read.

_**Of course, perhaps I'm mislead and you really do love him dearly, and in which case this letter will serve little purpose at all except to service as my continuance in foolishness. But if I know you at all, and if I judge merely on the last words you ever spoke to me, err rather screamed at me, then I dread also knowing that you are being held there as nothing but sacrifice for me. And damn you for it, Eva.** _

The tears returned to her swollen eyes, with black washing on her soft cheeks as her eye paint spilled down.

_**You are too brilliant for you own good and too tricky for mine. I run free in the streets below you every night, wondering when he'll let you down from that crooked tower to breathe. Do you even breathe anymore? Or are your lungs consumed by nothing but feathers and fine silks up there? Can you even see the sun through these wicked grey skies? For I assure you the view from down here is worth little more than the dirt under my boots.**_

Eva stood and walked with the letter to take a seat at the opposing window, the one facing the back alley of the house. She thought maybe he would be there, with his voice so strong, so liberating in her head. But of course, he wasn't.

_**He's going to keep you locked away until you die. He won't give you the sea, or that treasure you so desire finding. He's not going to listen to anything you have to say, ever. It's the harsh truth of this place, and I can't stand to let you fade into it. This isn't you, London isn't you Evangeline Marley. Being his pretty little wife, giving birth to his sons and half as accepted daughters, it's not what you want. I know better than you do of this even, because I know what you do want.** _

She was fearful of what was coming, what could possibly be coming of this.

_**You want to be free, you want to live before you forget how to, and you want to see places and do things and risk yourself for the thrill of coming out of it alive every time. And you will come out of it alive, for I'll be by your side every moment of it. Interruption kept me from telling you any of this when you were on the Pearl near of a month ago, but I can tell you everything now and even more when I find a way to you, and I will. **_

_**I'm going to save you Eva, if it's the last thing I do, if it leads to my own death I'll get you down from that fortress and back on the sea where you belong. You must know, for if you don't I will have no choice but to reprimand your ignorance, but you must know how I feel, how I've felt all this time. **_

_**You are, I fear, my match, the one I've tried to ignore. I walk in circles just to get to a moment when I can stand still without thinking about you, and I chart routes on my maps all night, none of which I travel, because you're not with me. I drink myself into an incomprehensible sickness every evening, always in an attempt to drown you, to numb everything you've done to me. **_

_**You are mine, Eva, only mine. Let him have his way tonight, let him make you his wife, but in the morning, when he's left for Boston Harbor on his seafaring business venture, let me take you back. Meet me in the garden, the one I've stood in for three nights passing, watching the glow in your room before you sleep. Let me save you from this place and that coward.** _

Her heart had stopped beating paragraphs ago, and now the words were merely working to keep her breath coming and going in a stagger. How had he known so well of Daniel's plans for Boston the day after their wedding? How else could he known so much unless he was closer than she had realized, all this time? She held the paper with trembling hands as she heard someone call and knock on her door. But she had to finish, there was no choice at this point.

_**When the skies turn a brighter grey, I'll be waiting for you, where only you know. Leave everything behind for him to find and allow me to turn you back to the life you're meant to follow. If there was a way for me to save you from today and the bond he's forcing you to make with him, know that I would. But I had no way of finding out the timing or the determination of it all, and am forced to leave it as this for your safety. You will be his wife with a ring, but you will be my whole life with far more. **_

_**I love you like the ocean loves the embrace of the sky, Evangeline. **_

_**Don't linger, love. Meet me without fearing him.**_

_**Still yours, Jack**_

* * *

It was the longest letter she'd ever received, from anyone. And more than that, it meant more than any other letter, or kiss or hug or jewel from any other man, especially Daniel. He loved her, the conclusion of it all, even more so than the escape plan, was that it was all bound together with his love. The power of which covered her skin like a blanket, warming the coldness her cage had built up over three weeks.

Eva wiped her face dry and clear and fixed the creases in her dress and the messy tousle of her hair as she moved toward the doorway. She left Jack's note on the small table, folded into a pile of books.

The music moved onward with her steps from the room. Annabelle helped her down the main staircase, handing off her bouquet of perfectly set white roses, and making minor adjustments to everything as they neared the garden at the backside of the house. It was more than a wedding, because it was a business agreement for Daniel's standing in London. She smiled and played the part Jack had urged her to in his letter. She walked with grace that made jealous men swoon and the proper ladies turn their noses up in thought.

Evangeline married Daniel without a fight. This, only because she knew fighting wasn't necessary when she had something even better to save her. She'd freed a man who could in turn rescue her, and a few rings or kisses to make a bond in society didn't scare her. And the best part was Jack was in her head, laughing drunkenly through all of it.

When he wasn't in her head though and she was too focused on pleasing the many people she didn't know and never would know, Jack's true location was masked by nothing more than a freestanding cherry tree at the back of the property. He swore he was there for moral, un-established support, rather than his own entertainment. He also swore he wouldn't stay beyond the vows, for fear of being caught or losing his mind with sickened anger.

But for whatever reason, good, bad, or foreboding, he remained and watched after her right into the night.


	23. How to Save a Life

**

* * *

**

How to Save a Life

* * *

_And the smile that you're wearing  
Is just a lovely veil  
For the secrets that you're hiding  
That are just too dark to tell._

_Evangeline, you're a hard one  
Your denial is bolstered by your dreams.  
Thinking love is gonna save you  
But it ain't love if it's mean  
Evangeline_

-**Evangeline** by Little Big Town-

* * *

"_Tell me again, I want to hear you say it over and over and over--" _

_He covered her mouth with his hand as she laughed beneath it. "Alright."_

_Jack relaxed back against the foot of the bed with Eva in his arms, dwelling on the warmth of the floor beneath him, the one that had been claimed as their own to make endless love on through the night. He felt her bare breast beneath his hand as his arms held her tighter, and he pinched it as she belted out in a childish yelp._

"_Jack! Enough…speak of what I want to hear already."_

"_Impatience will simply not suit on this vessel, my dear."_

"_But aggravation will?"_

"_Ye should know by now, that th' aggravation I cause is endless. Deal breaker?"_

_She shook her head and kissed his forearm where it settled under her chin._

"_There are no deal breakers with you."_

"_None, really?"_

"_Jack."_

_He grumbled, knowing he was diverging from the point again. _

"_Fine. You win."_

"_Good, now speak it."_

_Jack laughed heartily and breathed in to consume himself with much needed oxygen. He leaned down into the curly wisps of Eva's hair and whispered as lovingly, as passionately as he'd trained himself to in the passing of months._

"_Evangeline, you are heavens gift t' me and for it I've been made a fairly, faith ridden man."_

_She laughed softly and kissed over his sparrow tattoo._

"_There is nothing like you in this world. And if there were…well…" he paused in humored thought, "…I'm sure with me reputation, I would ave' already found it anyway."_

_Her jaw dropped with a gasp and she struck her fist against his leg as he groaned._

"_Okay, alright m'sorry, that was mean."_

"_You don't say?" She mocked with a tight grin up at him. He kissed it away quick though._

"_I swear it though in truth, you are only one. Ye cannot be touched or matched in me heart."_

"_That's good to know."_

"_And I'd save ye all over again in a single beat o' that same black heart."_

_A smile came to her mouth when a tear came to her eye. _

"_I know you would."_

"_You know all this, yet can ye claim t' know how much I love you?"_

_She gripped his arm tighter to her body, relaxing into his more as she began to doze off._

"_Can't say that I do…" her heart beat with a tired pace, "…won't you remind me?"_

_He held her close, resting as she did and murmuring against her hair as he fell to sleep too, "Always."_

The slam of a high door made this impossible though as Jack's eyes flew open to the dark night covering him. His bones jumped in his skin as he rubbed his tired, dreaming face and sat up from the ground to shift his gaze toward the noise. It was quiet again for a moment though, as he slowly moved from the tree back where he'd rested all through the day's ceremony until he'd fallen dead asleep. What he'd imagined, what he'd dreamt, wasn't real, for it had never happened. But he took it as some hovering sign, that it was coming, eventually.

He wandered about in the silent, shadowy garden, stretching his legs out until he heard another slamming door. The sound was coming from inside of the house, Daniel's house, and he moved closer to it down the side alley. Jack watched the glow from the high bedroom of the house, the one Eva had slept in all this time and heard the noise radiate from the same space.

**"_Stop it. I don't want to talk about this."_**

**"**_**Eva…"** _Daniel's voice was even-tempered, not willing to fight if he could avoid it. _**"…I think it only fair to know."**_

**"_To know what?"_**

**"_To know what has kept you so unhappy all these days, especially that of our wedding day. For heaven sake's my dear, I only want to see you smile for once. Is that so much for a man to ask of his love?"_**

Jack heard her softly groan at a distance and smiled as he leaned on the brick wall outside of the house below their window, listening in still.

**"_What keeps you in this sad state?"_**

**"**_**It's nothing, Daniel. At least…"** _she paused, her voice moving to another end of the room.** _"…it's nothing you can solve. What's done is done."_**

**"_What's done, Eva?"_**

**"_Too much. Things that I wish I'd never committed to. Things that I wish I'd done very differently."_**

Jack heard Daniel move to the same space as Eva, and he too turned his ears about the corner of the house to hear from the opposite side, where the French balcony peered onto the terrace below.

**"_I'm your husband now; you can tell me what these things are. I want to listen and help."_**

**"_You can't. Trust me. It's done with."_**

**"_Alright."_** He sounded to give in to this and Jack took a deep breath, but caught it again when he heard Daniel's persistent, almost changing tone. _**"I think now would only be a fair time then, for us to share our bed at long last."** _At this, Jack cringed and had to gulp back the pain in his less than sober gut. Eva's immediate tone brought him back to a hard reality though, one he approved of.

**"_What if I don't wish to share the bed with you?"_**

He heard Daniel gasp under his breath a little. _**"You don't want to complete our vows in this way?"**_

**"_No."_**

Jack threw his head back against the brick wall, furiously scared for what would come of all this, of her insistence on matching the man he'd told her not to bother with. He thought the point was clear in his letter, but now wasn't sure.

**"_I don't know if I can comply with doing that, Daniel. I don't know if it would be fair to you."_**

**"**_**Fair to me? I want nothing more than to feel you, Evangeline, finally."** _Jack sneered up at the open balcony doors. _**"It's all I've wanted for too long, and held back on out of respect for propriety's sake. I want to have you, darling."**_

**"_And if I don't want you in return?"_**

**"_What are you saying?"_**

He heard Eva shift her weight toward the doors more, breathing heavily and tired. _**"All I'm saying is I fear I don't have the ability to follow through with this any longer. The ceremony was beautiful, it was one thing Daniel. But this…"** _He saw her arm fly near the window, most likely in gesture to the bed. _**"…this is something else entirely. To consummate our marriage, tonight, would lead you to believe it is what I wanted all along."**_

Daniel's tone raised another octave to transform into a disturbed grunt at her. One Jack didn't like at all.

**"_You didn't want to marry me. You don't love me then? You lied?" _**

**"_I never told you I loved you."_**

**"**_**Damn it, Eva!"** _His fist slammed loudly on what sounded like oak, making Jack stand straight and ready near the wall. _**"What did you think those words spoken before God meant earlier? Anything at all?"**_

**"_They were meant for nothing but protocol."_**

**"_Protocol for what? Life?"_**

**"**_**Yes."** _Her voice was steady while his began heaving wildly over Jack's head. _**"It was etiquette for your lifestyle here in London, for the life of business and worth that you lead. Those words meant nothing to who I am."**_

**"_Who you are? A misguided young woman? A confused object of theft by a pirate?"_**

Jack's attention, same as Eva's above him, was full now and heady. _**"Jack did not steal me."**_

**"_Oh no? Did he ask your permission then, to bundle you away in his cabin for a week?"_**

She said nothing.

**"_He's nothing but trouble. He's a criminal whose only freedom has come from your promise. And now you go back on your word. What am I to think of that? What am I to do with you now, Eva?"_**

**"_You could let me go."_**

**"_Let you go where? To the sea with that rogue and his dirty ship again? No."_**

**"_I want to sail, Daniel. It's all I want. How can you keep me from that and still sleep at night?"_**

Jack heard fists slamming into wood and glass again and heard a body fall to a wall dangerously.

**"_Same as you can seem to deny me and my bed tonight Eva, and think you will sleep later. How can that be?"_**

**"_By knowing that you aren't what I desire of a lover."_**

Grinding his fists together and holding his stance ready and able as his eyes darted from the window to the back door of the estate, Jack prayed she would ease the tension enough to save herself some time. But he feared she wouldn't, judging by the sound of Daniel's voice. He knew that tone in a shunned man's voice too well.

**"**_**What then do you desire, so I might readily provide you with it?!"** _His hands were fierce on the wall, the one Jack pictured Eva pinned to. _**"Do you want that filthy Captain Sparrow? Is that it then, my pretty wife? Have you grown so very accustomed to his bed and his mold that you wish to deny mine before you?"**_

Eva was still and quiet.

**"_Did he have you? Did you let him have you willingly, Evangeline?"_**

**"_That is none of your concern."_**

**"_It is my every concern! For you are mine alone now. I am your husband!"_**

**"_And yet I love him, not you!"_**

Jack's heart raced with the claim, for he hadn't realized how much he would admire hearing her speak the words for the first time, despite them being under such wretched conditions.

**"_I do no doubt it, with the dreams your mind is rotted of. Tell me now…did he have you?"_**

There was silence for a long moment before he heard a soft laugh escape Eva's lips.

**"_Yes. He had me."_**

A growl started Daniel off again. _**"How many times?"**_

**"_Too many to keep count."_**

Her taunting would have been amusing under any other circumstances, but this wasn't a tavern in Thailand or the cabin of his ship, this was something altogether more frightening and serious. And Jack realized the full effect it when he heard her finally scream out in what sounded like true terror.

**"_Stop it!"_**

Because he couldn't see anything, he could only go on Eva's demands and words to force him to begin any attempt of rescue.

**"_Daniel, don't. Stop!"_**

He breathed deep and waited for a second longer, his hands tough on the brick wall, his knees bent for a run, and his boots grinding on the gravel path of the alleyway.

**"_I said, don't touch me!"_**

And there it was. Enough said for him or any other man of value in this world. Jack pushed around the corner of the house, heading for the back door he begged to be unlocked. Of course though, it wasn't. He pulled and tugged at the knob and it wouldn't budge.

"Damnit."

**"_No! Get off me!"_**

Eva's voice carried him elsewhere though and her cries for silent, un-uttered help drove him around the front of the large brick house toward the kitchen back where a small window was cracked open near the ground. He kicked it with a crash of his boot and let the broken glass fall inside to the stone floor of the cellar and kitchen before sliding inside.

He could still hear her at a muffled distance and picked up a pace into the house. Her screams echoed through the long halls and grand walls of the place. Jack's hand was firm on his pistol, holding it out in front of him with a finger on the trigger, the entire time he ran.

**"_I'll be your only Captain tonight! You traitorous woman!"_**

Eva screeched out, _**"This is how you treat a whore! No, don't--get off! Ah--"**_

The narrow end of her scream gave Jack signal to run faster, knowing exactly what had caused it. He was too late to stop the effort of Daniel's destroyed heart, but he wasn't too late to at least kill him and save her.

He could hear grunts of forced passion as he darted up the grand staircase, taking the steps two at a time, and then rushing down the hall to the large oak doors at the end. Whatever Daniel was managing, he was nearing an end by the third time Jack had kicked the doors with the heel of his boots and pushed one far open. He held up the gun, aiming for the back of Daniel's head, but realized it to be too risky when he saw how close Eva's was.

Her skirts were pulled up and twisted all around her knickers as Daniel moved against her, completely unconcerned with the sound of the door. He thrust into her twice more before the gun in Jack's hand suddenly clicked back and fired toward the bed.

He heard Eva's horrific screech, as loud as the others but very different, and moved in close to the bed. She was trapped underneath Daniel's bleeding form, trying to breathe and trying not scream for the help she didn't realize was so close. But she soon did, when she felt Jack's hand, the one only she knew the touch of so well, as he grasped her begging hand and lifted her body from under her husband's.

Her eyes were wide with confusion and fear and all the disgracefulness she'd ever need as she let Jack carry her away from the bed and out of the room. The maids did nothing to stop him, too afraid for their own lives. Jack walked right out of the back door, sneaking with Eva in his arms through the garden's darkness, and taking her away to the Pearl using the most hidden of alleys and least noticeable of corners in the city.

She never said a word. And he never pushed the obvious. He was only content to have her safe again, no matter the method to get her there.

* * *


	24. Heal Me, Love Me

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* * *

**

Chapter 24: Heal Me, Love Me

* * *

_And high up above or down below  
When you're too in love to let it go.  
If you never try you'll never know  
Just what you're worth._

_Tears stream down on your face  
I promise you I will learn from my mistakes._

_Lights will guide you home  
And ignite your bones  
And I will try to fix you._

_-**Fix You** by Coldplay-_

_

* * *

_

He'd done it. The bastard had managed to do just what Jack had set out to prevent in returning to London. Daniel Bryant had scarred the only thing left of worth in the world for men; a beautiful woman. And not just any beautiful woman, but the only one that could steal the hearts of even the most determined of men.

There was one significant wound among the many bruises and scratches Bryant had caused, that needed attention far beyond what resting could provide. A gash made by a blade Jack had never even noticed in the scheme of the night's battle, had at some point, somehow, become an enemy of Eva's and cut through to almost the bone on her hip. He imagined it was some disturbing tactic of revenge that Daniel had concocted in the throes of his agonizing rape on his new wife.

Jack had dressed it well enough for the time being, but knew that they were lax of the proper supplies on the ship this leg of the journey. He worried infection would set in without the right treatment, making him cringe.

He'd seen blade infections too many times to not be aware of what could come of it.

He tried to sit and found he was a better deliberator, under the circumstances, on two feet. So he paced, from one corner of the cabin to the next, through curtains and rooms and furniture, like the weaving madness his mind was in. He tried not to look up at the form in the middle of his bed, the one that barely made a stitch of noise or movement; the one that scared him and apparently loved him all the same.

For almost two full days of sailing, Eva had slept. No food entered her stomach and no words were spoken. Intervals of crying at brief periods of wake left Jack's head an unruly mess, as he would sit at an idle distance and keep his presence from common knowledge to her with his head in his hands, simply listening. And eventually, she would fall hard back into rest and he could pace again.

He wondered if he'd killed Daniel or not. He wondered if some new force was trailing closely behind. He wondered how long she'd get to stay with him this time, before someone else tried to take her away.

In light of certain happenings, Ireland had been the furthest venture from his mind, despite how badly he knew they both wanted it, still. Instead, he let the crew argue over possibilities for gold hunts, locations and rumors they'd been told of and what could lie in the ocean depths anywhere between England and Peru. Jack let Gibbs take lead of the ship at most, while he remained right where he was, in need of food himself, in even more dire need of rest, and none of it a capable thing. If he ate, he'd be indulging himself in what she seemed to be unable to. And if he slept, he would miss her too much and risk the chance of her waking without him.

So he sat, he paced and dwelled for 40 hours. And then halfway through the 41st, she opened her eyes.

Eva felt as if she were floating in a white abyss, cotton waves and cinder air burning around her. She gasped awake, her dried lips parting as if they were made of sand. She noticed her hand half covering her face, and through the cracks of her fingers, she saw a figure coming gently toward her.

"Vang'line...?"

The man said her name, her whole name. She felt the weight in the bed shift as the figure sat down near to her side and brought his hand close to her face. Eva didn't flinch, not when she felt the cool silver of rings dance on the heat of her hand as he pulled it away.

Her eyes shifted around in her skull, falling on his face, his bare skin showing through his shirt, his hair scattered about in tangles and weaves, and finally his own eyes, calm, smooth like the waves that rolled under her, but as destined as the chipped wood burning in the flame she felt around her.

"How badly do you hurt?"

What kind of a question was that, she thought. I didn't even notice the pain until you said anything.

But now that she did, it radiated, like a magnetic surge from one limb, one bone, one muscle to the next. She tried to turn onto her back and the filtering heat of the pressure stopped her as she winced and fell to her side again. Jack slid closer to her, trying to keep her from moving about, realizing what little power she had to do it with, and what sort of agony was caused in the mere attempt.

"S'alright," he stroked her hair and she calmed into his warmth, reaching out for his waist next to her face. Her weak arm gripped him with slack effort, but it felt tight to her. "I'll take care of you, Eva."

A sigh emitted at this statement and Jack swore when he turned his face down to see hers resting at the curl of his stomach, that she was smiling. He toyed with her long curls, twisting the knots from within them until finally, after too long, he heard her speak to him.

"Can I…" there was a pause as she choked on the chalkiness in her throat, "…water."

"Water? O' course."

He slipped from her arms and leapt from the bed, having waited hours on end just to be able to give her something, to help her. Eva watched with blurred vision as he rushed to a table, poured fresh water from a pitcher and into a tin cup and then came back to hold it to her lips.

"Ere' ye go. Easy does it."

Her hand covered his around the cup as he tipped it back for her to take a few tiny sips. It was more than enough though. Nothing, she determined, had ever tasted as sweet as the water that she imagined was being poured straight from his hand, like some preternatural force of being. The delusions were strong from too much sleep, weakness, and pain, but they felt good despite it and she welcomed them as they came over her.

"Better?"

She nodded with a smile and then fell to his lap again, too content to move away from the tightness she felt growing there at her touch. Jack tried to ignore it. He tried to pretend as though it were nothing but his own routine bodily action. But he knew better of it now. He knew way better of it.

"I know a place, Eva. A place that might help ye t' feel well again."

"I feel well now…" she sighed dreamily, "…just don't move."

"Indeed. But something t' mend the bruises an' such."

Again, not until he'd said anything, had she felt the swollen pain between her thighs or the way her arms hurt just where another man had grabbed her with anger.

With a mumble, she clung to him harder, "What place?"

Jack brushed her hair some more and let his fingertips dance over the faint scar her arm had been mended to all those long months ago now, the very first time he'd saved her from the harm of another man. How anyone could hurt such a delicate little thing, despite her ferocity that only the lucky few knew the potential of, was beyond his realm of understanding. So she could weld a sword and fight off the Navy. She was still just a girl, a flower among beasts.

He knew the place he was thinking of would find Eva a healthy young lady once more. He knew he had no intentions of letting her get hurt again either, even if he had to take the next set of bruises or bullets or thrust of a sword for her. She would be well no matter what.

* * *

**Somewhere off the coast of Greenland…**

* * *

"Need elp' getting her further inshore, Jack?"

Gibbs stood near the exit of the gangplank to the simple, uninhabited dock, watching as his captain carefully held Eva wrapped in a blanket against the extreme cold of the January chill. Jack looked back at him for a moment, then to the misty land just ahead again and shook his head.

"It's not too far from here. Keep watch o' the crew and ready them for Galway again."

"Aye, sir."

"An' make sure there's food prepared for er' when we return."

His older friend nodded and saluted before shuffling away with a handful of men under his immediate command. Jack focused on the slanted steps of the plank as he descended to the old, half destroyed dock. It had been years since he'd come to this place and most likely months since another soul had stepped foot upon it either. The fog was too heavy this time of year, the cold too difficult and the ice too slick to be truly safe for visitation. But he knew that what was in this place, the great warm pool that healed, was too solid a bet for Eva's return to strength for him not to fight the wind and temperature.

There was a fair enough path, laid out by centuries of misplaced salt rocks and magnesium stones to follow, and he did well. Eva was conscious, awake in a manner of speaking, but too tired to look past the blanket that covered her nose. Jack caught her frail blue eyes a few times through the mist and figured as much that it was from both the loss of blood and the possibility of his fear setting in with an infection beneath the blanket.

This made his step quicken towards the thicker fog in the cold.

The rocky ground grew higher with passing minutes of walking and as he crossed over into the deep plateau of the land, he saw the gloss of the black pool he'd been searching for, the one that still radiated with that intense heat he could remember from the first time when someone had brought him here to heal. Jack carried Eva toward the shallower bank of the massive stream of water.

"Eva…" he whispered to her, brushing off the stiffness of his cold nose and cheeks. "We're ere' love."

Her eyes shifted open up at him again, her hand clung tighter to his coat collar, but she couldn't speak. Her teeth chattered when she tried and he stopped the attempt with a soothing but freezing hand on her forehead under the blanket.

Jack's boots sank into the soft snow near the water and then gently he knelt into it, letting the heat from the mist melt away the shake in his bones. He set Eva down in front of him, leaning her against his legs as she softly cried out with the pain in her hip.

"It h-hurts…"

"I know, this should elp' though."

His gesture down to the water occupied her thoughts while he began to pull away the blanket, and then gently strip her of her shift dress and chemise. Her skin was bare, she was practically nude in his hands, but she couldn't feel the cold anymore, she could only feel the heat of his fingers and the rising mist around them. Eva breathed in deep and leaned into Jack as he carefully lowered her into the spring water from the iced stones.

"Old' on just here," he took each of her hands and placed them on the rocks and then moved away to tear off his own coat and tunic. Eva looked up at him, mesmerized still by the illusions before her sparkling, tired eyes.

"Jack…?" He looked down, to only then watch as her cheek slumped down against the rock, lulled into unconsciousness before he could jump into the water with only his breeches left on.

"Eva." He grabbed her body from the rocks and pulled her deeper into the warm water, her bare skin pinned to his. "Eva, look at me. Open your eyes."

She tried to, she could hear his voice and it sounded so good, like medicine.

"It burns, Jack." Her head fell to his shoulder, her lips parted for sleepless words. "Is it supposed to burn so terribly?"

"Only means it's working, lass."

"Working?"

He held her forehead back from his shoulder and stroked her damp hair, leaving countless kisses on her head as he watched the waters completely pacify the pain from her once wrinkled brow.

"Is it magic water?"

Jack smiled and rubbed her wet cheek, "Something o' the sort, I wager."

Eva sighed and held onto him tightly, too fond of the sensation the warm water and his skin had on her peaking breasts to let go.

"I was so stupid, Jack."

He didn't say anything at first. He just closed his eyes and listened to her sadness.

"I provoked him to do this. I was foolish and I didn't wait for you and…" she sucked back the teary eyed cough in her throat and sniffled into his bare chest, "…I deserve what I got."

Jack stopped her there though, threw his eyes open and brought his hand down to lift her chin up at him.

"Don't ye say that."

"Why not, it's perfectly t-true."

"It's not."

She disagreed with another nod that it was and it made him livid to see her make the assumption that what had happened to her, was her own fault entirely.

"I made him angry. He was my rightful husband and I owed him myself. It was the deal I made."

"Bloody nonsense…" Jack mumbled angrily and splashed water over her shaking shoulders. "You sold yourself t' him, and for wot'?"

"For you."

His eyes turned down painfully to hers, "Why Eva? Why did ye do it?"

She found his feet on the stony bottom of the spring and stood on his toes as she pressed her cheek to his solemnly beating heart, trying not to look at his angered eyes.

"I couldn't let myself not do something, when I knew where they were surely keeping you. Daniel assured me you would hang and I have no doubt you would have."

He knew she was right, but he hated that she had to take it into her own hands.

"I refused to let that happen, you cannot be taken from this world, Jack. You just can't, not yet."

"I would ave' managed t' escape somehow. Without you sacrificing yourself for it."

"Perhaps, but I didn't want the chance to pass and know that you had failed when I could have saved you."

"And you did, leading t' all this."

He threw his hands about in the air, gesturing to her state of pain and wound.

"Yes. But I'm here with you now, look," Eva turned his face down to hers and Jack felt himself brightened just by the renewed sapphire glow in her eyes. It was working. For the both of them. "I saved you and you saved me and I'm here with you, again. That is why you took me from him, isn't it?"

"Yes, o' course it is." Jack turned Eva and gently pressed her into the smooth curve of the rocks, letting his body hold hers up instead; his hands soft on her waist under the water and his lips practically touching hers. "Did ye not receive or read my note at all, Eva?"

"I did."

"And…?"

"You spoke sincerity. I didn't know you could romanticize in such a way."

Jack laughed a little at this and pressed his wet bandana to her forehead.

"I ave' me Shakespearean moments, darling."

Eva tried to shift her hip a little as she grinned, but it immediately became a wincing cry of pain as her wound severed further with the hot water burying deep into it. Jack calmed her and tried to examine the cut as he raised her thigh a little.

"E' did a good job on ye."

"Not so good as you did to him."

She bit her lip as his finger trailed over the gash.

"Did your gun kill him, Jack?"

"Don't know. Wasn't concerned with it at th' time."

Eva leaned her head back tiredly on the rocks. She felt Jack stroking her shoulders and neck with more water.

"They'll be after me again, no doubt."

"An' I'll be waiting t' shoot the lot o' them."

She smiled a little past the soreness in her hip and reached out to touch his face in the fog.

"Eva…" he whispered against her fingertips, as he held her close, "…you told him you loved me."

She grew weary but nodded a little.

"Is that true?"

"Of course it's true. Why would you ask me th--"

He cut her off, his lips hard on hers, holding her body like it was the only pure thing left to cling to in the world. Eva felt her heart skip a beat, then jump free and clear from her body, do a dance somewhere over her head and finally come right back down to pump wildly against her chest. Jack's lips were the softest, the sweetest they'd ever been from her memories, the bristles of his mustache and dingles tickled her chin and upper lip, and his hands roving over her face and arms were sinister at best. Before she could find his tongue though, he pulled back and let his mouth linger over hers.

"I had t' know before I could…"

"Before you could what?"

His eyes sank into hers, his fingers twisted through her wet hair and he kissed her lightly. Finally he whispered to her, as quietly as could be done so as to keep the secret from the world, from everyone who never thought it possible.

"Before I could tell you, that I love ye too, my Evangeline. Like you wouldn't believe."

* * *


	25. Lay Lady Lay

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* * *

**

**Lay Lady Lay**

* * *

_Come with me, m__y love_

_To the sea, t__he sea of love._

_Do you remember w__hen we met?_

_That's the day __I knew you were my pet._

_I want to tell you_

_How much __I love you…_

-**Sea of Love** by Joe Saponara-

* * *

When they arrived back at the ship, the men had left a sprawling table of foods awaiting Jack and Eva inside of the cabin, and one by one as she stepped carefully across the deck, the men welcomed her properly since her re-arrival and wished her health well. She was surprised to say the least, since she'd been sure before that the men didn't take her seriously and saw her as little more than a tasty treat or curse.

"Glad t' see ye walking again, little lassie."

"Aye, welcome back aboard, poppet."

Pintel and Ragetti patted her on the shoulders as she passed and she thanked them softly, more appreciate for such greetings than ever before. Yet in her continued weakness, she eventually felt the blood rushing too fast from her head to her toes, weighing her body down until she couldn't stand any longer. Before she hit the deck though, Jack caught her in his arms and carried her to the cabin without another interruption.

"Set course for Clare Island. Now," he commanded quietly as the men scurried to.

With a kick of the door and a slam of his body to close it, Jack walked Eva to the bed and eased her down into the center of the blankets.

"You need food."

"Food?"

"Yes." Jack went to the table and filled a plate with meat and cheese, and a bowl with warm stew. Then he returned and sat at Eva's side. "The challenge o' walking about this world entails nutrients, you know."

She smiled and watched as he dipped a spoon into the soup, then brought it to her lips, feeding her hunger. Eva had to admit it was good, despite being mostly broth and nothing more, but it was warm in her gut.

"Aren't you going to eat?"

"You first."

She looked at him warily, but took another spoonful of stew and swallowed.

"You've changed Jack."

"Ave' not."

"Yes, you have." Eva took a bite of the cheese between his fingers. "I didn't think you could be this way."

"Caring?"

She took a bite of the chicken.

"Heroic?"

Eva sipped at the cup of wine to wash it down.

"Or in love?"

"That's the one."

He laughed and sat the plate aside on the table, then leaned over her body, stroking her hair. For whatever reason, he loved doing that, he loved touching her and feeling her skin under his fingertips, twisting her curls and kissing her and everything else that involved Eva romantically. He couldn't bear it anymore, ignoring it. He had to accept all of it.

"Trust me, it's not easy t' come to terms with."

"But you did."

"Because it's how I feel. Against all th' odds."

Eva tugged at the strings of his shirt as he went on.

"For as long as I can remember, it's been th' sea and me ship and commitment be damned t' the Gods. But then ye stumbled out o' nowhere, _literally _I fear."

She remembered the day she'd fallen in the street before him, running from the guards of Martinique.

"I did, didn't I?"

"Gracefully, yes."

"But you saw me before then. The alley."

It filtered back, the very truth of that first night, and he sighed briefly before running his hand up her leg and thigh.

"Ah yes, God elp' me…the glory o' those knickers in the dark."

"Tempting?"

Jack came closer, his fingers dancing over the cloth of her wound, until he slid his hand underneath her chemise against the smoothness of her stomach.

"Th' worst there e'er was for a man."

"Compliment?"

"Praise, love."

She bit her lip and grasped at his still damp dreads from the springs, pulling him by the back of the neck toward her. Although he knew he wanted it, he hesitated, warding himself from her for the sole purpose of her recovery, but she persisted in bringing her mouth to his.

"Eva, perhaps you need further rest."

"Are you, _Jack Sparrow_…denying a woman's company for the night?"

"Bite your tongue," he scoffed and pressed his lips to hers purposefully proving her wrong.

It worked how she wanted, for as he had once told her, flattery was dangerous with pirates. But what Eva had learned, was that there was something even more dangerous, and that was putting their urges into question. Especially, with a woman.

His tongue found hers quickly and nearly ripped her mouth apart at his eagerness, of weeks gone by with nothing and no one because he refused to take on anyone who wasn't her. Jack moved to fall into the comfort of her legs as he shifted her body down lower, his knee grinding into her warm center, testing her. With a hand holding the back of her head and another keeping her right hip from being bent into a painful direction, he cradled her under him like the most precious gem or like he would his ship in a heady storm.

She pulled and grasped at his arms through his shirt, trying to find as much as skin as possible, until she eventually just tore it from over his head as he laughed at her.

"Guess th' magic water served its purpose."

"Magic water has nothing to do with weeks of pent up desire for you."

"I'm satisfied knowing that."

He grinned wickedly and brought his lips to suckle at her neck as his fingers toyed with the ties and silk buttons of her cotton shift. Eva tried to help him but he slapped her hands away and instead forced them overhead.

"Relax, would ye."

Jack bit her ear and she moaned out, "I've waited far too long to simply _relax_."

"You an' me both, darling," he growled and kissed her temple before finally pulling away the chemise. "But _try_."

She laid bare beneath him, completely aglow with the scattered candles and never more beautiful, with or without the damage done to her. Her olive skin was marked, but he was only half done with healing it. Her blue eyes, hidden by a wave of unruly black curls, were still scattered with hopeless specks of uncertainty. But he knew just how to reassure her, just how to make her see that his only intention from that moment on, was to keep her safe within his every reach, at every waking moment of every day, until the end of his.

Jack couldn't keep himself from looking at her and remembering every detail, from the pattern of her solemn breathing before making love to the tiniest of freckles on her shoulder or brow. There was too much he'd missed, too much he had to catch up on from mere weeks of loss than would allow him to take her fairly and quickly. This had to go slow; this had to be carefully done and no less.

"I won't urt' you, Vang'line."

"I know that, Jack."

He bit his lip and kept focus on his index finger as it trailed the fiery skin from the curve of her neck to the slender plain of her lower stomach. Eva held her breath, expecting him to go so much farther so much sooner, but he didn't. Jack brought his mouth down to her left breast, kissing in a circular pattern around the perimeter before ever even making it to the actual peak, the pink and rounded bud of subtle nerve endings that awaited him like a prize. He savored everything before indulging at the realm of all possibility, and then, when she least expected it, he took her hardened nipple between his teeth and massaged it with his tongue.

She gasped with his name on her own tongue, _for who wouldn't_, she thought. Jack knew how to make her feel things that she didn't realize could be felt in times like these. No man before him had and she prayed no man after him would get the chance.

Funny thing was, as he tasted the bitter sweetness of her tender flesh in his mouth, his secular mind prayed for it just the same. _Eros and Ishtar, ye better make this work for me, you traitors, _Jack thought, releasing one breast for the other as he indulged the Gods in his actions, _Give me a reason t' mean it this time…_

Eva squeezed the skin in his shoulders anxiously, as if she might fall from the bed directly to the ocean below the floor. His lapping tongue and nibbling teeth satisfied every last spark in her bosom, until she'd relinquished the knowledge of her own name for the consistent moaning of his. Jack let the rush subside when he felt her hips finally buck at him, and instead moved onto to wider territory.

He planted kisses down her stomach, aiming for his goal location, that tattoo he'd let himself dream about day in and out since she'd been snatched.

"I swear…" a kiss on one of her bruised ribs, "…ne'er have I…" one upon her navel as she giggled at the sensation of his tickling mustache, "…tasted _anything_…" and a final one just above the blackened wing of the tiny sparrow he loved even more than his own, "…as sweet as ye."

He drank in the sight of the ink greedily, licking and tracing over it a half dozen times before finally glancing up to see her tilted eyes from the distance away.

"This is my favorite spot in the ole' of the world. Right _'ere_…" he kissed the bird lastly.

Eva's eyes tumbled into her head as she tugged at the faded red fabric of his bandana where it reached her hip.

"Want to know mine?"

Jack caught her eyes curiously again as she curled her finger for him to come nearer.

And of course he did.

He hovered over her as Eva reached for the buttons of his breeches and he chuckled and swiped her hand away.

"Ah ah, wot' did I say?"

She pouted, "Why do you insist on driving me mad with further agony?"

"Patience really isn't yer strongpoint, is it?"

"I'm allotted my weaknesses same as you."

He raised his brows from under his bandana at her.

"I ave' no weaknesses, Miss Marley."

Eva pursed her lips at him.

"Wish to make a bet on that?"

"A bet, with _you_, a witch with tricks? No," he laughed and tried to move down her body again.

But Eva pulled on his arm to stop him, "Afraid, Jack?"

"My my, dearie…" he shook his head down at her, "…time spent in London really has made you see fit t' test conscious limits, hasn't it?"

"Perhaps it has."

She pulled on his arm until he fell to the large mattress beside her. Eva giggled at the way he landed in a flop into the mountain of blankets and feather pillows, the look on his eyes one of contempt, shock and lust.

"That's th' last time I heal you in the springs. The strength is more than I can bear."

"Sh."

For whatever reason, when she pressed her finger to his lip and rolled over with very little pain to lie atop him, Jack hushed instantly.

"Let me show you something."

Her finger slowly slid from his wet lips, although he tried to pull it into his mouth and lost. Eva straddled his hips as if the gash in her leg were nothing at all, and worked on again untying his pants. Jack didn't try to stop her this time; it was pointless when she had control of him so easily. To see her naked form sitting like a goddess high above him, to feel her bare thighs urging the blood to pump through his manhood like a thousand rushing waves at once, and to catch a glimpse of a humored sapphire glance now and again, was enough to make him a happily, dead Captain.

"I discovered this one morning while you slept, all of a month ago now."

She smirked as she carefully pulled his breeches from each leg and threw them to the floor. Her hands on his mid thighs with a gentle squeeze made his cock rise quicker, thick with blood and all that he was for her within seconds. Eva approved of her ability to cause such a thing still and lowered her face towards it sinfully.

"Wot' could ye possibly discover in such a private sp--"

Before he could finish, before he could think to finish, Jack felt the bite of a serpent on the upper inside of his right thigh, a place too close to his whole being to be of any comfort and yet just too far away from where he really needed the bite, the sting, the teeth and lips and tongue of her. He grunted away the short lived pain and shook his head against the mattress before raising it to find her eyes.

"Wot' the hell…" he stopped himself to collect oxygen again, "…ave' you no sympathy for that region anymore, lass?"

Eva wet her lips and then moved her face back down without a word. Jack tried to stop her but was seconds too late, when he instantly felt the smoothest kiss, the wettest lips and tongue sliding along the out of sight wound her teeth had made, just over a long since forgotten birth mark. His eyes rolled back into his head, his knuckles loosened from the sheets and his entire body slumped comfortably into the bed without need to fight what felt like heaven and hell come together for an extraordinary festival inches from his livelihood. And when he was a complete goner to her all over again, none so different than all the other times before it, Eva gently covered his body with hers once more, meeting his tightened eyes and kissing them each until he opened them to her.

"_That_," she whispered, "Is my favorite spot."

"Any other reason in particular besides th' obvious?"

"Yes," she smiled and twirled the shorter hairs around his ears on her finger, "It's where you acquired your very first marking in life, of all th' ones you have. It's where you were marked by your mother's struggle to bring you into this world. And what would the world be without you?"

As the haze washed from his eyes, Jack looked richly up at her. Somehow that response made him think and analyze every bit of Eva more so than before. There was something in her eyes when she said that, something more genuine than any other moment they'd ever spent together.

"I have only your mother's strength to thank for you being here with me now. Will you tell me about her one day?"

He smiled and held her face in his hands as he gently flipped her back to the bed again.

"I will," he replied peaceably and kissed her on the mouth quick. "One day."

Jack nudged her face with his nose and moved one hand down to ease her good leg and thigh up over his back.

"But right now, _tonight_, my little _pirate_," Eva grinned wide up at him, "I only want t' concern meself with you."

"Fair enough."

And a minimal second later, Eva felt herself filled, consumed and soaking up everything she'd desired during her entrapment. Jack slid deep within her moist body, as if it were nothing at all, and supported her hips to keep her from finding any pain at the sudden movements. He rocked his hips against her softly at first, letting the situation control itself, letting Eva's bones rest while his found the ability to move from the already complete respite she'd put them into, with nothing but a nibble.

"Jack, you feel so…"

He grinned and kissed the corner of her mouth, thrusting harder and deeper inside of her.

"_Good_, love?"

She shook her head and he stiffened for a moment, concerned.

"Much…_much_ better than that…"

Eva pulled his shoulders toward her and moaned every breath into his ear as he found a steady pace again.

"Great?" He grunted out breathlessly overhead.

"Better…" she cried, digging her nails into his arms.

"Wonderful…?"

Eva rolled her eyes and threw her head back as he slid from her body to the wet tip and then drove right back in, plunging into depths she hadn't known existed, ever before.

And that's when she finally screeched out for all the crew to hear, "_Phenomenal_!"

Jack tried to concentrate on breathing rather than laughing, but found himself indulging in both as he forced his body into her on a lost count of times. He watched the veins in Eva's neck pulse richer, the muscles in her tiny arms expand with every squeeze she laid into his body, and her eyes clench tighter, every single time he touched the radiating spot mysteriously within her.

"Do it, Eva…let me ear' it, love…" Jack leaned down as close as he could get and pinched her eager breast with his teeth, "…_sing_ for me…"

The sound of his voice, the request he'd made, and the way their bodies moved together like some unruly, magical combination, was all enough to force it out of her. Eva wrapped her arms firmly around his neck as his mouth left her breast again and he half lifted her from the bed, still pumping furiously within her. Only then, when she felt invincible in his arms again, did she scream out in the sing-song, crooning fashion he adored so.

Jack's head swarmed with something far better than the release he felt building inside of him and her. It was something undeniable and fearful and beautiful all at once. It was that one thing he had hated for so long, that he'd forgotten how to just _love_ its truth.

"Jack…" she cried out for him and he assisted in letting her waves hit one after the other as she became suddenly limp in his arms, "…_Jack_…"

Even just the way she hollered his name in the progression of deep lovemaking, made every bit of him crumble. And somehow he didn't mind it at all. He let it go, all of him, the seed of his three week long stint of nothing but heartless, self gratification with her face and the memory of her legs and eyes and touch all that would suffice. No whore, no wench, no barmaid or penny pinching nightcap could do what she did. And because of that, he found no reason to bother with them.

Jack howled out her name, loud enough for not only his crew to hear on deck, but those below, and most likely the entire population of whatever port or shoreline was nearest. And then he fell down to her side and heard her laughing softly underneath of his draped arm and slumped form.

"Jack?"

"Hm," he responded drunkenly with his face pushed into the pillow.

Eva moved from under his arm to half lie across his sweaty, warm back, kissing the nape of his neck.

"I love you."

He grinned wildly against the pillow and she swore she saw it, so she repeated the words.

"I love you," she whispered against his skin, "I love you…I love you…_I love you_…"

He laughed and twisted his face back at her just enough to be heard.

"Leave no stone o' emotion unturned, darling?"

Eva twisted his dreads in her hands and kissed his tattooed shoulder blade.

"I've never said it before and really meant it. I want for you to know I do this time."

Jack shifted underneath of her until she was resting on his chest instead and kissing his chin as he rubbed her arms.

"An' you're sure ye want t' run about endlessly with me, risking yer life an' ne'er having peace again?"

"Yes, I'm in." She stroked his face, "I think that sounds utterly _phenomenal…" _

"Utterly foolish, says I."

Eva smiled and found the point to feed back his aged words to him.

"Then so be it, I'm a fool for _you_."

_Oh_, he liked the sound of that best. Two fools gambling for the world under their feet and never settling except upon each other. _Yeah_, Jack thought quietly as he fell asleep with his Irish luck in his arms, _That's wot' I've needed._

* * *


	26. Rebels of the Sacred Heart

* * *

**Rebels of the Sacred Heart**

* * *

_All time and circuitry i__s wrong_

_As far as poetry_

_Sit down and sing to me -- __A song_

_A spell a rebel yell_

_A spell_

_Soldier, come home to me._

-**A Spell, a Rebel Yell** by Coldplay-

* * *

The night passed over into midday and the faded grey against the windows remained, but there was warmth in place of the frigid chill they'd been dealt in the waters of Greenland. Eva woke before Jack, numb in pain completely and more than able to move from the bed and dress on her own, eat on her own, and even walk about from window to window, examining the skies and distant horizon.

She couldn't see land, but that certainly didn't mean much when she heard the shouting from outside of the cabin door, and then a swift knock.

"Galway coast ahead, Cap'n!"

Eva saw Jack struggle to wake, his face pressed roughly into the bed and she laughed.

_Galway, _she thought, watching the way his nose wrinkled in stirring, _feels good to be back. _

Jack stretched long, only modestly covered by a sheet as Eva stood at the end of the bed, latching onto his ankles. He pried his eyes open tiredly and glanced down at her, half smiling and still half drunk from the night before.

"Wot' now? Didn't I suffer nough' last night by you gypsy?"

"Get up, there's land spotted."

Her quiet persistence, like a child wishing to play, was something he couldn't deny so easily. But he was tired.

"An' it's not going anywhere."

Jack let his head fall between the pillows again as Eva pulled on his legs.

"Come on. There's still a treasure to find…"

"Oh," he chided mockingly with a swaying hand, "Better run along then before th' other pirates steal it."

She snarled at him and let go of his ankles without the success she wanted.

"Fine then. If that's the way you want it. I'll just entertain myself till you've had your beauty rest."

Eva stomped to a far chair and grabbed Jack's effects, throwing them over her own shoulder. He caught a glimpse of what she was doing and suddenly wriggled free of the sheets and landed on the floor feet away from her, bearing all to the light of the room.

"Don't even think about it, Eva."

"Think about _what_?"

"Ye know what."

"No," she winked coyly with an eye on his hard cock and turned for the door of the room, "I haven't the faintest idea."

And before he could find the clothes to chase her in, she leapt out onto the deck with a slam of the door.

Jack growled under his breath and quickly began searching out his pants and shirt.

"Girl's gonna embarrass me rump right t' the plank…" he pulled on breeches and ignored the tunic he couldn't find when he heard a loud, bellowing screech of commands from outside of the cabin on deck, "Thinks she's th' bloody _Captain _o' this ship!"

He threw open the door and darted barefoot and half undressed into the light grey of the Irish high noon, only to find a much different spectacle than what he'd expected. His men weren't being demeaned by a woman and his position wasn't being threatened by the only girl he probably ever would let threaten it. Instead, he could see Eva prancing around in the center of a huddle of men, all of them laughing and cheering her on for something. And when he got closer to see between the shoulders and heads, he saw what that fascinating something was.

_Sword practice…_with his sword.

"A quick flick of the wrist, gentleman…" she thrust the sword out toward the younger boy's neck she was pitted against and smiled when she caught her stance on bare toes, having frightened him half to death. "It's all about lightness of foot. That's why the best swordsmen are actually _women_."

One man shook his head and argued her point with a laugh, but she ushered him forward to take his chances.

"Don't believe me, sir? You should come and test your skills."

"Ha," he chuckled and ripped the sword from the young deckhand, stomping in front of her. "Ready t' bleed, lassie?"

Jack's brow tightened and his fists clenched at the inquiry, but before he could ready himself to bother saving her, Eva had begun to dance about the larger man. Silver flew through the air with a clinking shine as she tapped his sword a dozen or more times, urging him to move same as her, trying to make him more of a fight. For while he had the advantage of strength and weight, nothing could match Eva's quickness or darting blade.

"Not so sure now, are we?"

She chided with a tiny smile as she stamped her boot onto his larger one and instantly flung the end of the blade between the man's legs, a mere breath away from his stiffened manhood.

"Close," she whispered to him as he choked on air. Jack laughed proudly in the crowd as she slid the sword away. "I wouldn't want to take that from you though, sir. It would be a rather lonely journey wouldn't it?"

Her mockery made the giant man's eyes roll back in his head as he fell away in the crowd again, only a soft pat on his shoulder from Eva to ease him. And that's when Jack stepped forward between his men, shirtless and grinning.

"You are no more than an eager tease, Marley."

Eva glanced behind her to see Jack coming close, snatching away another man's sword.

"I'll wager I can match ye without th' fright me crew possesses."

"Can you, Jack?"

Her mock grin left him half undone, but not enough to indulge him away from not fighting her.

"Let us see then," she held out the sword, ticking it back and forth against the one he held, "How gracefully you fall at the nip of your very own _tool_, Captain Sparrow."

The crowd murmured and laughed breathily around them.

"Confidence eh, lass?"

Jack circled about the crowd, in control of the movement at least. His eyes sunk down upon hers with a husky whisper.

"I like that."

"Good." She stepped softly into place finally, planting her feet at the ready. "I aim to please only."

"She can please me any time o' the day that pleases er'!"

A voice from the crowd belted the words and Jack's eyes shifted off for half a second to reprimand the man on Eva's behalf. This was his first mistake.

Eva leapt forward like a fairy warrior, swinging the sword in a crescent circle from the tip of Jack's nose to his crotch, nearly grazing the surface of the bulge she saw in his breeches. He gulped back a laugh of fear and turned his eyes quickly to her smiling face and determined stance.

"Ever the protector of my less than good name. It will be the death of you, you know."

He smirked and pushed his own blade from his crotch, "An' I'll welcome it."

Eva giggled and flew back into a proper stand before him, letting his borrowed blade slash down against hers a second later. She held her own well, although he was stronger and taller and more knowing of this sort of battle. With short flights of dance at his sides, she noticed how his feet moved the same as hers, and how their fight was a difficult one to find allegiance to win upon, since they travelled the deck so similarly.

Their swords clanked minutes later and they both took an easy breath, laughing at one another.

"Tired?"

Eva inhaled deep, "Never. You?"

"Don' flatter yourself, love."

And again they drew forceful blows to the slight edges of one another's blades. The crew cheered on opposing sides, placed their bets in the tow of excitement and shouting, and every step they made on the deck, every spin or thrust or threat of sword points to limbs, Jack saw himself a more taken man, a more owned one. Eva couldn't know the rush in his mind as she tapped his own blade to his upper arm or thigh. She couldn't know what it felt like to him, and how sweet the short pain of the nicks on his knuckles each were. She couldn't know how fiercely he claimed her as his,_ indefinitely_, in the fury of their battle.

"Finish er' off Cap'n!"

"Take im' down lassie!"

The fans of each side continued their commands and howling until Eva finally felt her arms growing weak at the sockets. She didn't want to deny the fight, or her desire to beat him, but her body was saying other things. It was angry at her and ready to burst into flames at the intense struggle Jack was capable of putting her through with only a sword and ship deck.

She laughed it off only a moment longer, when her hands doubly swung his sword at his neck, splicing against the surface alone before he grasped onto her hands over the handle and pulled her to him.

"Gotcha," he whispered with a growl as he held her hands above her head and then immediately pulled her by the waist and threw her tiny form down upon the deck at his boots. "Ave' a rest, dearie."

The men who had known Jack would conquer began to throw their hands about, patting their captain on the shoulders and back as he smiled down at Eva beneath where he leaned over her. She held an angered and tired scowl on her face as beads of sweat rolled off her nose and temple. Jack watched the dew of exhaustion sparkle on her skin in the sunlight, thinking how badly he wanted to lick it clear from her. But this was improbable, especially when a second later, in the midst of shouting and coin tossing for bets, he felt something snake between his boots and immediately tug his body down.

Eva tripped him, of her own aching legs' accord, and watched as he fell in a jolt to the deck beside her, grunting when his body hit the hardened wood the same. The crew gasped out in shock of what had taken place and almost instantly began arguing over the truth of the fights' conquer and who had really won the betted coin.

Jack though, his face pressed down to the wood deck next to Eva's, could only grin tightly at her.

"Well done," he mumbled.

She smiled and reached out to pat his sweaty cheek, "Likewise."

A sigh of fair breathing escaped both of their lips as they listened to the argument of winnings and truth above them.

Finally, Jack pushed his weight until he could stand again and looked down upon her with a curious brow.

"Treasure now, darling?"

Eva nodded with fierce excitement as he reached down to lift her to her feet, before the two of them snuck off.

* * *

With Dill bundled in Eva's arms and barking insistently at the nearing coastline, Jack thrust back on the oars of the small dingy, keeping his eyes peeled over her head at the others manically shouting out from the ship. He laughed under his breath and fought against the rock shore to pull the boat nearer to the white stone beach, like another time before.

"Shouldn't we have brought a crew to help?"

He shook his head.

"But aren't you worried they might get mad and attempt sailing away with the _Pearl_?"

For a brief moment, he turned his face down in constructive thought, ceasing the paddling. She had a point, but Jack of all people knew that stealing the _Black Pearl_ was becoming an obsolete sport. Few cared to bother anymore, knowing that it would only be a matter of time before some sort of danger or omen ensnared them. And on top of which, Jack always retrieved her.

So again, he laughed and smiled at her.

"Not t' worry. Gibbs'll hold down th' fort with that bunch. An' they know what we're after."

Dill barked back at him in some kind of odd agreement to the statement, and Jack nodded.

"See, th' mutt knows as best."

Eva tickled her small dog's stomach and slid to the seat beside Jack as the back end of the boat hit the stone shore. Dill jumped out first and ran halfway across the grassy hills in a scampering excitement. Jack got out next and gained a firm footing enough on the rocks, to lean back and lift Eva's delicate form out of the boat, setting her next to him.

She smiled and held his arm, breathing in the gusty Irish wind. "I've missed it here."

"Fresh air looks good on ye, love."

"Does it?"

Jack tilted his head down toward her sarcastic brow with a sideways glint of his teeth and an inching touch of his lips to hers. Their eyes remained open fully as they kissed, ignoring the taste for the wild, continued test of limits they found in one another's gaze. The sword duel had done nothing to satisfy Eva in proving herself against him, but when Jack was the first to react under the spell of her eyes and roving tongue upon his, to laugh with a release, she felt proud enough.

With his hand tugging at hers then, Jack reached into his coat pocket and drew out the wrinkled parchment they had found in their last venture to this island. The riddle remained intact and just as confusing as the first time she'd read it to him. Weeks of study and deliberation in moments when his mind was free of plotting to get Eva back, had done nothing. The only thing he was even remotely sure of, after his conversation with Mary in Tortuga, was that there was a chance Eva had something to do with it, more than she realized.

He held it out to her as they walked along an imaginary path up the hill after Dill.

"Here. Think ye can make something o' this now?"

Eyeing the paper as he pulled on her other hand softly, Eva looked over each word, remembering them so well and yet not well enough. It seemed like a century since she'd held the paper, or thought of the treasure, or readied herself for what could be hiding on this island. Now it all flooded back strongly.

"_Where the clovers do not grow_…" she hummed for a moment in thought, before glancing up at Jack as he walked briskly and catching his eyes with a small conclusion of sorts, "…clovers need lots of water. It's why they grow all over Ireland, Jack, where it rains so often."

He nodded, half understanding.

"That means we need to find a spot on this island, where it's dry. Most likely, it will be to an extreme."

"_Dry_…" he contemplated it and twisted his fingers with hers, looking out over the landscape of only wet greenery. "Anythin' else?"

Eva turned her eyes to the paper again, studying it, attempting to make connections of any kind. It took her a while, and by the time she saw anything in particular worth noting, they were in the middle of the island on a steep sloping hill of wild thyme plants. Somehow she believed this meant they were getting closer and Eva spoke out on the second clue she was sure she could determine.

"It says there's no marking. So we aren't looking for a tombstone."

"Wot' then?"

"I don't know. Something leading underground again, possibly. An _unearthing_…"

He smiled down at her with a teasing smirk then, "Think ye can handle more bats, darling?"

Eva just shook her head up at him and spun around, walking away with the paper down the hill.

"This way," she shouted back, and of course he followed close on her heels.

For at least another mile through the center of the island, Jack kept a firm pace directly behind Eva in the misty breeze, his clothes moistened, his eyes blurred except for in front of him at her. She stumbled through damp wildflowers and constant green, assuming to be heading in the right direction, but looking only nonsensical based on her observation of the _dryness_ of this hoard.

"I thought ye said t'would be a little less,_ green_."

"It will be," she shouted back, rushing through the fog.

"Eva. Yer leg, walk," he warned.

"Oh come on, we're getting close!"

He couldn't understand how she could know such a thing without a map or a book to follow the guidelines of. Both items had been forgotten in the dramatic rush of events back in London and were now the sole property of whoever remained at the Bryant residence, he supposed. She was going off of what seemed to be instinct, and although he felt sure he could trust hers, he also knew that this island was most likely uninhabited and rather deserted for good reason.

No one had the irrational sort of guts that they did.

A second flew by and he lost complete sight of her in the misty wind surrounding him. He shouted out her name, but there remained only silence as he hurried through it still. Jack could hear a faint bark from Dill, and that was the only reason he continued in the right direction, continued until he fell through the last bit of fog and barreled into Eva's tiny, motionless form on the clear end of a strange squall of air.

She laughed out at him when he collided with her and kept her from falling down the same.

"Run into poor, innocently standing girls often, Jack?"

After regaining his balance at her side, he gave one twisted smirk and replied, "I see no _innocent_ girls ere'."

Eva gave only an equally wicked smile before she stepped away from him again and into what he now saw, through cleared vision and witty tongue, was an indifferent field from the other. It had come about so suddenly, like the back end of a tormenting hurricane. It was silent and warm and deathly peaceful, with its uncommonly yellowed grasses, thin, pebble filled soil, and non-existence of anything green at all.

Focusing in on where Eva stood in the center of the circular desert, surrounded by smoky emerald on all outer existing sides, Jack just winked with a teasing nod.

"Found this with yer scent did ye?"

"I haven't a single clue actually." She smiled and twirled around in the dead grasses as he watched. "I just felt it here."

"_Felt it_?"

He thought about that for a moment, remembering a number of different details in a millisecond or less.

"…_means __**'good message' **__Jacky."_

"…_the connections o' the black Irish are few an' far between now… she birthed a son quietly o' the__same__**black blood**__. __He was said t' have been the last of the__**pure blooded ones**__, __but who really knows…" _

"_For the __**hex**__ cannot be broken of the wealth, until the __**last child of the first blacks**__ has had their say."_

"_A lot o' those black ones ave' these __**otherworldly gifts**__, if ye will… Nothing too dangerous, just __**curious**__."_

"_Marley's __**old Irish**__."_

He blinked to come back to reality, hearing Dill barking at a short distance where he and Eva sat in the grass, examining something closely. Under his breath he mumbled what he'd long tried to deny and yet always reaffirmed, "_The last child_. Dear God, she's one o' them. Eva's related t' Grace."

His name being shouted caught his attention firmly and he looked into the wide, browning field to see Eva beckoning him from the ground up with a smile.

"Come here, look what I found."

"Wot'?" he asked as he stumbled towards her and knelt down in the dried grass.

Eva's fingertips dug through a soft patch of dirt and stones, revealing the slate of what looked like a plank of wood beneath the ground they sat upon. He leaned in closer and she turned her face back toward his with a bright smile.

"How did ye find that?"

"I don't know," she replied honestly again, "I feel as if I can sense it all, and yet I Can't. Is that weird?"

He grinned a little and inched his face toward hers all the more, holding her eyes tight.

"No," he whispered, pressing his forehead to hers for a single, eternal sort of moment.

He examined her eyes, the rich indigo that had for almost two years been the death of him. And yet here, at this spot, where a wood plank revealed itself with an underground purpose of some kind, in the middle of a dry, clover free field on the shoreline of the Irish coast, they meant something more than death. Her eyes gave way to the treasure that life can bring, if only one knows how best to look for it. Grace did, and suddenly, as if by some natural definition, Jack saw that Eva did too.

It was a rebel descents spell on her own life's earning. The spell of a rebel's yell deep inside of _his_ Eva.

"No, s'not weird."

She giggled at the way he studied her so longingly, "Then why are you looking at me like that?"

"I think I just figured it all out, s'all."

"Oh did _you_…" she teased, keeping her forehead pressed to the bandana on his, mocking him, "…share then, pirate."

"You wouldn't believe me even if I told it t' ye."

"Try me, Jack."

He smiled lightly at her and silently wove the plot; the one wrapped around the confession, that he felt sure was going to soon enough lead to the discovery under their feet.


	27. Show Me What I'm Looking For

**

* * *

**

Chapter 27: Show Me What I'm Looking For

* * *

_And if I were a king  
If I had everything  
If I had you then I could give you your dreams  
If I were giant-sized, on top of it all  
Then tell me what in the world would I go on for  
If I had it all?_

_I could take anything  
If I had no greed to bring  
Only the poison that's tainting the clean  
Oh, then nothing._

_-_**If I Had It All**_by Dave Matthews Band-_

* * *

"Jack?"

She tried again to pull his attention back, trying not to laugh at the way he stared from her to the soil under their boots, and then right back a half dozen times.

"Jack, what is it?"

"Huh?"

Here she giggled a little and pulled on his coat, "Tell me. _Now_."

His eyes shifted down to focus on hers as they lit up, "Read th' last line o' that riddle to me."

"Why?"

"Trust me. Do it."

Eva followed the order and held out the paper, quietly reading to him.

_"For the **hex** cannot be broken of the wealth, until the last child of the first blacks has had their say."_

"Wot' child?" He teased back.

Rolling her eyes she repeated, "The _last_, Jack. Why?"

He stood up quickly and began stumbling around the dead grasses, stomping his boots to test the actual perimeter of the single wood plank she found. He looked foolish to her from where she sat in the dirt, but when he continuously began to hit other wooden grounding with the heel of his boots, she became curious herself and rose, doing the same.

"How big is it?"

Eva smiled with a grunt as she forced her boot down a few feet from Jack.

"_Big_," was his profoundly, simple answer.

"It can't be a tomb this shallow in the ground."

"Don' be so certain."

He found the last of the planks then, settling on the area from a second side. Jack was determined it was at least twenty feet across and the same the opposite direction, all hidden under a fine layer of soil and grass.

"Why would Grace want to be buried so close to--?"

A crackling, aged break of the wood surface they both walked upon startled him with Eva's screech following. His face flew back as his feet did to find her boot twisted between two of the planks where they had severed even under her light weight.

"Eva," he ran to her side as she tried to pull her foot back out. "Easy. Ye don' want to lose the thing, do you?"

His mockery as he leaned over her, gently easing her ankle from out of the jammed boot, made her only chide back.

"Will I get to have a peg then?"

Jack shook his head as her tiny foot came loose from the boot, resting in his hand.

"Just, hold onto th' foot for now, love."

Eva laughed and grasped onto his arms as he helped her to stand, then yanked her boot free from the planks and replaced it to her foot. Together they walked back across the area to the where he imagined the center was, and when Jack knelt down and began scraping at the dirt and grass to reveal more wood, Eva crawled down beside him and copied the action. Dill even returned to them from further into the fog, barking and scratching against the grass as if he were digging a hole, helping them.

"So this mutt o' yours does more than bark, eh?"

"Yes," she replied, tossing a handful of dirt at him playfully, "And his name isn't mutt."

"I know that," Jack smiled and wiped the soil off the bridge of his nose where it showered him. "'Is name is Dill. An' he made good company when I didn't ave' you t' talk to."

Eva slowed her movement through the soil for a single moment and looked across into Jack's eyes. She realized then, even though he'd already said he loved her and that he wasn't going to let anything happen to her ever again, that she never wanted to be anywhere else in the world, unless she was with him. That was the moment, on the day, that Eva decided she would never give Jack up.

_Never ever_, she thought with a tiny smile as she went back to pulling the grasses from the wood.

This went on for a steady half hour at least, until enough soil was brushed away and enough of the planks revealed for Eva to first notice a scratched indentation in the wood. She ran her fingers over it lightly, feeling the words that were etched upon it and gasped.

"Jack come here, look!"

He crawled a few feet to where she was brushing furiously, leaning in closely to the ground.

"Wot' is it?"

"Words -- there are words scratched here."

His hands moved simultaneously with hers, both of them laughing with jilted excitement all of a sudden, and finally clearing the area enough to see the aged and faded inscription of its entirety. Slowly, she began reading it.

"May your pockets be--" Jack cleaned the spot better for her and she concluded, "…_heavy_…and your heart be…" a bit of grass covered the last word and she tugged it away as he finished.

"Light."

They stopped and turned their eyes to one another, confused.

"Is that it?"

Eva shrugged and tried to study the words in their full intention for a moment, before pausing with a back thought, something she kept hidden deep within her mind and memories, and she shot a wide glance up to him again quickly.

Jack looked at her funny, "Wot'?"

"It's a blessing."

"Well yeah, if we can get t' the damned treasure it_ will be_ a blessing Eva."

"No, no." She shook her head wildly at him, thinking difficulty about the words again. "This, the writing, it's an old Irish blessing. My father used to tell it to me when I was a child."

With shifting eyes, Jack watched Eva stand and begin to pace back and forth across the planks, searching out an answer to what she was talking about. With her head in her hands as she walked, he could hear slight mumbles of things, but nothing coherent. Not until she instantly halted, feet from him, looking off into another direction and began to whisper something.

"_May the Irish hills caress you_," Eva turned around to face him from a distance and smiled, remembering it all so well, and finishing. _"May you know nothing but happiness…And may good luck pursue you from this day forward."_

She concluded the simple proverbial hymn with a wide grin, hands clasped together excitedly at having solved the puzzle, and eyes shining down towards Jack's. And he was thrown aback with a brilliant haze of joy just from watching her, from seeing how from nowhere in particular, everything about this land flooded into her.

The moment was a passing one though, when only a brief second later there was a knocking rumble of the ground underneath of them. Eva struggled to keep her balance on the wavering planks as she heard them cracking from all different directions.

"Eva!"

Jack jumped up from the dirt and threw himself toward her when he saw the wood directly beneath her boots shifting. He latched his arm around her waist and pulled her up, running across the rattling planks for the foggy grass line again. Eva screamed with the movement only once, before Jack felt the ground under his feet completely disappear with a loud crash of dust and heat, and he flew forward in a leap.

Together, after what seemed like an eternity of flying, they fell tangled in the wet grass. Jack shielded Eva under him from the rising dust and splinters of wood in the air. And Eva clung to him, shocking herself and him both, when she began to laugh as the breeze cleared across the now fallen ground beside them. Jack looked down at her curiously, her dark hair flowing through the damp grass and her eyes sparkling like emeralds.

He coughed and blinked, "I always knew ye were a morbid little thing. Th' possibility o' death truly humors you."

She raised her hands in surrender and kept giggling, "Masochist. Remember?"

"Right," he rolled his eyes with a chuckle and turned over from her in the grass, "How could I forget?"

At the same time then, on crawling, careful hands and stomachs, Jack and Eva inched towards where the ground had broken and fallen downward into richer soil and stone. It was as if half the world had caved in under their feet. It was as if Eva had completely changed the course of this place by knowing more than she ever thought possible.

She leaned over the side of the gaping, twenty foot hole, with wide eyes and a dropped, choking jaw. Jack hovered over top of her, looking in past her head at the same view, and feeling his gut churn with a boil of shock.

"_My God_…"

Eva laughed under him, eyeing what must have been a half mile deep cache glittering from side to side within the stony trench. Rubies, sapphires, emeralds, diamonds, gold plated everything had been settled so comfortably under the ground. And now, was a dazzling aurora of existence in the first sunlight to poke through the grey clouds overhead.

"Think that's what we were looking for, Jack?"

A contented sigh of laughter came from deep in his throat as he hugged her tightly under him, still looking over the edge of the treasure sink hole.

"Love, if that's not it…" he kissed the top of her head, breathing hard and excitedly. "Then m' more than prepared t' be greedy an' search beyond this 'little' hoard you've found."

Eva tilted her head back to where his was settled in the crook of her neck, over her shoulder.

"We found it together. It's _ours_."

Jack smiled and pressed his mouth hard to hers, rolling her over in the moist grass to cradle her body under his and take complete possession of her lips and tongue. She wrapped her arms around his neck and back, clinging as tightly as she could with her legs hooked onto his, boots tangled a mile away. Their tongues dueled for space and command, but together they eventually laughed and pulled away, smiling down and up at one another.

"It's all ours," Eva beamed with outstretched, angel-like arms in the grass.

Jack ran his hands along her arms, bending his body down to hers again and murmuring against her lips, "An' you're all _mine_."

* * *

**Galway Bay – Blarney Mulligan's Tavern**

* * *

"A toast t' Miss O'Malley's wee little _protégé_…" a slurring, half stumbling Irish man of four feet and two-hundred or so pounds, held up his tankard in the air above where Eva sat perched in Jack's lap, laughing. "…Fer if she didn't 'ave a paddy with a blessin' in 'is pocket fer er', we would ave' never found that _godforsaken_ breast o' jewels…"

Jack nuzzled Eva's neck with wispy kisses hidden in her curls as she tried to focus on the humoring company surrounding them throughout the tavern floor.

The man shouted, "T' darlin' Evangeline, a Marley after our own black 'earts," and with him, at least a hundred arms were raised with drink in a hollering toast. She laughed wildly and held onto Jack's neck as he stood up with her draped in his arms and lifted her high for the audience to see.

"'Fraid she's all mine t'night, gents!"

"And every night after that too, I hope," she whispered in his ear where he could hear over the crowd.

Jack caught her mouth in swarming kiss as he walked her to a safer, clearer area at the bar and settled her down on the stool, "Indefinitely."

"Good."

She spun around to face the company of wenches and barmaids serving drinks behind the counter, as he stood leaning directly behind her, his arms hooked around her waist in claim and his chin resting on her shoulder, breathing in her hair from time to time.

They were greeted by every individual man in the pub; dirty, old, poor or well to do traders. Most of them couldn't come to a conclusion about when Jack had been there last, or to Galway for that matter, but they remembered him, they adored him, and with Eva as their new blood line heroine and family, they loved her ever the more and same.

Gibbs and the crew eventually met up with them in the town and were staged all about in the tavern, enjoying their smooth skinned company and righteous Irish lager as defiantely as the locals. Joshamee had chosen three men to watch after the hoard on the opposing island through the night, and spent the rest of the evening assuring Jack he picked only most daft of them for obvious reasons.

"Those blokes'll never figure out ow' t' get th' jewels out o' that hole, Cap'n. Fear naught."

And he really didn't, he was too concerned with celebrating the final success of finding it to worry about a couple of his lesser crewmen falling in to retrieve a ruby or two. Particular women would travel by the bar and leaving swiping hands or curious winks in Jack's path, and although he turned to give them proper attention for all of a second, his focus was always brought right back to Eva's eyes, the grandest treasure he could find.

After only hours of conversing, drinking, and flirting with the oldest and wisest of the men in town, did Jack step in and press his lips to Eva's ear with a gentle coercion.

"There's a room calling out for ye upstairs, Miss Marley."

She curled her neck where his hot breath tickled and she giggled in the candlelight of the bar's corner.

"A room with a bed I presume?"

Jack spun her around on the wooden stool to wrap her legs around the backs of his as she smiled teasingly.

"We don' _have_ t' use the bed. There's th' wall…th' floor…_windowsill_ could be--"

Eva cut him off from rambling with her lips firm on his and hers arms circling his neck, as she lowered herself from the stool to stand and pulled his mouth down to stay glued to hers. A huddle of close friends and crew cheered them on rowdily, drunkenly, until Eva released Jack to grab his hand instead, rushing through the hollering company to where she saw a half hidden old stairwell in the back of the tavern.

"See! She can't hesitate t' ave' her way with me, mates!"

A few close men howled out and whistled with their drinks raised as Eva tugged Jack up the creaking steps. There was only a whisper of ruckus from below when they made it into the narrow hallway of the second floor. A dripping candle or two lit their way, but Jack couldn't wait half as long as he thought he'd be able to, and when there was wall space enough, he pulled harshly on Eva's arm and pinned her to it under him.

"Too good for a room--"

His mouth hushed hers the same as hers had done to him. His hands were everywhere, all over her within seconds, tearing and snatching at her manly fashion of dirtied breeches and tunic. Buttons were his enemies and the strings of her pants couldn't untie fast enough, and certainly not before Eva wiggled free of him and headed for the door at the end of the hall again. She snuck in and grabbed his shirt to pull him inside with her.

"Fine. We'll keep it a private show then."

"Yes," she replied tauntingly, with her fingers snug in the waist of his pants, "They'll just have to listen."

"Oh will they nah…"

"A huh."

She moved Jack towards the bed and then shoved him down to the squeaky old mattress in the dark.

He managed to get comfortable and lean on his elbows, watching her dance around in the faint, low burning candlelight left, twisting with a tipsy sort of laugh and finishing off the job he had started on her clothes. She was a vision of enchantment, as always, but never so vividly as on that night, in the midst of long awaited, piratical success.

Eva pulled her dirt covered tunic and undershirt away and tossed it to the corner, leaving her supple breasts to glow sweetly before him.

Jack sat on the edge of the bed, staring wildly.

"It's not fair," he whispered as she worked on the ties of her brown pants, kicking off her boots, "Half th' world is left ugly in th' night, an' you've stolen all the beauty for yerself."

Eva looked at him oddly as she pushed down her breeches and stood swaying nude. With a curled finger and glinting rings, he grinned and beckoned her to him.

"Come 'ere my little thief."

She tiptoed to him, taking a stance between his spread legs as he commanded a soft hold of her bare hips. Jack pulled Eva to his body, letting his mouth dance across her smooth stomach with heated kisses from the dark curls he could see wistfully below, then moved to her navel and even higher as he rose to stand, meeting the valley of her breasts, her neck, with his lapping pecks, and finally, after too long again, her lips.

His kiss was rough, necessary, but calming all at once.

Eva's hands were lost beneath his shirt, ripping it away with his coat in the same swift movement. He shook his head and wrapped a strong arm about her tiny waist, lifting her and then dropping her easily into the sinking middle of the bed. He hovered with only his breeches on, but tightly ground into her moist center as she blindly untied them to release what she could feel.

"A gift for me, Jack?"

She teased, as she reached inside of his pants to hunt out the solid, swollen ache of him. And she knew she had, just by the grunt he lowered into her ear and the buck he made out of habit in her squeezing hand.

"Play nicely t'night, lass."

"Now why would I ever play with you _unfairly_?"

Jack moved to hover over top of her again, looking her square in the eye as she smirked devilishly.

"No ship knots, gypsy."

She shook her head, assuring him.

"No _herbal_ pies."

First she giggled, but then agreed to the term.

"An' no biting in otherwise…_concealed locations_."

She pouted at this, and he raised a brow for promise, which she did.

"Fine. But that doesn't mean I can't harm you elsewhere."

Eva snapped her teeth up at him and shoved until he fell to the mattress at her side. With a prance, she jolted across the room in the direction of the singular candle, and then carried it right back to the bed. Jack though, quickly snapped into action with defense hands.

"Oh no. No." One finger raised at her did nothing and she rolled her eyes, pushing him back down to the bed, "Eva don't ye even think 'bout it."

"Relax. I already found the marks another wench left you with."

His brow was twisted as she came low to him on the bed again, hovering the tin candle holder over his stomach. With her free hand, she began tracing the taut skin of a preexisting burn scar on his lower right hip. Jack sighed with the touch, where her warm hands made the memories of that flame, from that one tormented woman long before her, reignite again.

"I won't do that to you," she whispered and leaned down to kiss the spot.

"Did ye find that in another of your nightly travels o' me skin while I slept?"

A smile curled on her lips as she lowered the candle even more to his skin.

"You hardly talk about your past. So I had to figure things out for myself."

"Well darlin' I don't--" before he could speak again, there was a drizzle of wax far along his stomach and chest that made him gasp out, struggling under her hooking body, _"Wretched devil..."_

"Is he going to save you from me?"

She teased him for a single moment before placing the candle on the bedside table and returning to completely cover his body with hers. There were wisps of her cool breath blowing where the wax was burning, making the hairs on his arms rise and his frightened manhood all the same beneath her legs.

"No," he finally sighed under her breathy touches, "I don't want t' be saved from ye."

"You might regret that."

"I don't regret anything 'bout you."

Jack wrapped his arms around Eva, turning her over yet again, for the final time that night.

With the change of position he gained, her legs firmly tied around his back, her pleading cunt throbbing against the firmness he yanked from his linen pants, he had every bit of her under his spell. All it took was one swipe of his lips against hers again, one single, calculated thrust deep between the folds of her moistened form, and he had both her and the whole world finally.

Everything about her made him feel closer to the center of the burning universe, where things were risky and uncertain and tempting. And yet in reverse, every bit of Eva always made him feel as safe, as protected and as cradled in beauty as any one person could possibly feel. With every quick drive inside of her, he experienced jolts of energy between both of her sides, the good and the bad, the rebellion and the concentration, the fear and the love.

Eva cried out his name wistfully as the bed creaked with their unified movement in the pitch black room. The feeling of dried wax rubbing against her stomach and breasts, as he made strides upon her, brought a glowing smile to her quivering lips and she reached out for his mouth. Jack delivered, kissing her deeply, before holding her bottom lip in a biting hostage with another thick thrust.

"Jack I--"

"I know," he crooned tiredly in her ear when he left her mouth to suckle on her ear, "God trust me love, I _know_…"

He forced his hips down and hers rose up higher to meet. He felt the walls of her around him shaking like mad. Her thighs wrapped at his sides trembled with sweating agility. The peaks of her breasts against his boiling chest left his mouth gaping with every tender push or pull of his body from hers.

"I can't -- I--"

"Yes," he grunted anxiously, "Yes ye can."

A panting mew escaped from her when the very tip of Jack's hidden energy source, cinched her most soaring of places, the one that every time he touched it, made every muscle in her body twitch. He brushed back the sticky curls that laid on her forehead and cheeks, kissing her zealously from nose to the top of her head, pushing against her still but cradling her for protection.

"I want all of ye, Eva…_YES_--Ah!" He forced himself down upon the spot wildly, leaving a last whisper on her mouth, "Let go, my little bird. Be _free_…"

A satisfied grin came to his face when he hovered, thrusting more and watching her gaze snap shut with a glaze of ecstasy in her voice as she screamed out. Eva shuddered in his hands, like a melted star that got too close to the sun, falling limp but still sparkling from the dew of passion. Jack kept his pace strong, deliberate, finding his own ready and harmonious release seconds after her. He filled her with all of him, groaning, with her name sweet on his lips.

"_Evangeline_…"

"_Jack_…" she replied the same, breathless and holding onto his strong arms.

"_Evangeline_."

"Jack," she mocked him again, choking on the fiery air around them.

He fell in a heap atop her, trembling like she was, heaving like she was, and still incapable of keeping his shaking lips from her soaked, jasmine skin. He kissed the only part of her he could reach in tire, her outstretched arm on the mattress, leaving circles of wet claim from her shoulder to wrist, never missing a step along the path.

"You taste like sin," he chided shakily.

Eva wiggled her fingers of the hand he clung to, just brushing the bristly hairs on his cheek.

"You feel like it."

He chuckled under his breath and pulled her weakly, closer to him. When her face landed on the bed just beside his, he raised his heavy head and draped it over hers with a tangle of weave and trinkets, rubbing her smooth olive cheeks with the roughness she admired so, making her laugh out crazily.

"An' ye better get used t' it, dearest."

From under the hide of his long dreads, she poked her eyes out and tipsily said, "I already am."

* * *


	28. Fearless

**

* * *

**

Fearless

* * *

_They say behind every man is a good woman  
But I think that's a lie  
'Cause when it comes to you I'd rather have you by my side.  
_

_You don't know how much I count you to help me win  
When I've given everything I got and I just feel like giving in._

_'Cause when it all comes down  
And I'm feeling like I'll never last  
I just lean on you 'cause baby  
You're my better half._

-**You're My Better Half** by Keith Urban-

* * *

The victory night faded into a stormy early morning, with the windows of the tavern room fogged and the cold chill startling Eva awake consistently. Everything from the bed, to the wood floors, the shingles and walls, creaked and rattled with the wind, making it impossible for her to sleep.

Eventually, with twinkling blue eyes in the blackened room, she stretched across the narrow old bed and reached for her clothes to attempt gaining warmth. Jack awoke with her crawling effort and watched her quietly for a long time, as she tied ties and hooked buttons again, stroked through her messy hair and pulled on her boots.

In a whisper he asked, "Runnin' off without me, pixie?"

Eva twisted her long hair into a braid and glanced back at him with a tiny smile.

"Of course I'm not. I had every intention of carrying you out of here in a sheet alone, then letting you wake up miles away on the trackless sea."

A sigh of laughter rumbled in his chest as he reached out and rubbed her back.

"I can't sleep in this squeaky, old room anymore."

"Where would ye like t' sleep, then?"

"On the _Pearl_."

Hearing her say that, hearing her name his ship as her place of comfort, was plenty enough for him. He sat up and starting getting dressed while she watched silently. Jack threw on his effects then his boots as Eva wrapped her arms around his waist from behind. Her head rested against his back, rising and falling as he breathed and moved, and just the way she latched onto him, made him feel uneasy. He felt something uneasy in her.

"'Fraid o' the rain too, darlin'?"

"No."

"Then what's got ye all jumpy?"

Eva squeezed him harder at the question, breathing in his deep rum and spice scent. She wasn't even sure she knew what was bothering her, or what felt wrong, something just seemed out of place in her mind. Something was trying to warn her subconsciously, she just didn't know what for. Jack turned his face back over his shoulder when she didn't respond, and tried to soothe her mind.

"We'll go back t' the ship. Plot a course back t' Shipwreck with the treasure together, alright?"

"Alright."

Her soft voice met with a release of her arms as she slid from the bed and began walking for the door of the room. Jack got up and hurried after her, grasping and locking her hand in his before she made it into the hall again, and never letting it go all the way downstairs to the quieter, half empty pub. Together they walked to the bar, where Jack thanked and compensated the owner, Toby, a man he half recalled as a younger boy in his travels to Galway with Teague. Eva stood listening and smiling for a minute, but eventually fell loose of Jack's hand and walked for the door of the tavern alone, heading out into the rain.

She wasn't sure why, but it was as if something were leading her there, away from Jack and out of the tavern to the dark, lonely street. Eva couldn't have possibly been outside alone for more than a minute, letting the rain drizzle on her head, before she heard a voice from behind her in the narrow road of the town.

"Evangeline."

Her name, spoken so properly, was so unlike that which her new friends and Irish rouge comrades had taken to. They had all called her Eva, or Little Marley, or Jack's girl. Not Evangeline. For this she stopped pacing in the rain, her back still turned to the voice, and wiped the water from her eyes the best she could.

"Evangeline, it's me."

That's when she quit the thoughts and turned around, knowing all too well the propriety that was calling after her.

"Darling, I'm so glad to have found you finally."

Daniel rushed through the storming street toward her, smiling, arms open, and glowing, sympathetic eyes. She stood without the will to move out of his range, and was swarmed by his soaked form only seconds later.

"Eva, you haven't the faintest idea how much I've missed you. _My love_…" His arms were strong, just like she remembered from all the times he'd pulled her in the opposite direction of where she wanted to go, or who she wanted to be with. He stroked through her damp hair as he kissed every inch of her head and cheeks, cradling her, holding her like a father would, like a lover would after years of being lost in the world. "I'm so sorry, Eva. Please, _please_ forgive me for all I've done to hurt you. I wish only to make it all the more better now."

She shuddered against him, trembling not from the cold rain, but from the defiance he held her in. Daniel had no intention of letting go. She was going to have to force her way back, again.

"Daniel please," she begged, shoving on his chest with her tired hands, "Please, don't."

"Why ever not? All I want is to hold you to me."

"_Nooo_…stop."

Eva pushed him away and fell back a few feet, the rain falling in between and on her eyelashes as she watched him solemnly.

"What's wrong, dear? Can you not accept my apology?"

Her jaw gaped, amazed by his foolishness.

"No. Why would I do that?"

"Because I love you. Because you're _mine_, Eva."

She shook her head, "I'm not yours."

And when Daniel made the attempt to step in closer and convince her of the opposite, a low and deep voice reiterated the truth behind him.

"Eva's with me, Bryant."

Eva and Daniel both turned to the sound, one smiling faintly, and the other scowling as the rain slammed on his face. Jack stood idly, his sword hanging by his side, shining loosely in the storm, but ready to kill if need be.

"_You_," Daniel growled back. "I should have known better of making a deal with the likes of you."

"Yes. You should have," Jack agreed coldly.

"She's not yours, Sparrow. She still holds my name. She's _my_ wife."

"Her name is Vang'eline," Jack taunted with a step closer in the muddy street. "Or 'ave ye already forgotten?"

Daniel turned toward him, forcing Eva behind his form for protection.

"I'm taking her back home."

Eva's eyes grew wide as she struggled against Daniel's arm holding her.

"She is home, mate."

"No _felon_, to London. Where she belongs."

"I don't belong th--"

"Quiet, Eva!" Daniel's shout at her made Jack snap forward into another step. "It is of little concern. There is no argument to be had. You're going."

"No I'm not."

She tried to push his arm away and run past him to Jack, but Daniel caught her wrist and threw her back in the other direction, where she slid on the wet ground and fell into the muddy road. Jack's sword immediately cut through the rain at Bryant's neck, only nicking the surface by the time he turned back to the accredited fight boiling in a start.

"What? You're going to play hero again, Sparrow? Save a deserving wife from her wretched husband? Your worthless gun didn't work on me the first time."

Jack thrust his sword toward Daniel once more, this time pinning the tip to his coat's chest.

"It's _Captain_," he growled as he saw Eva a few feet away, struggling to sit and wipe away the blood on her forehead from where she had fallen. "An' Eva's not going anywhere with ye again."

"The law says she is."

"Damn th' law. Damn yer high an' mighty King on is' throne. She doesn't love ye, Bryant. Accept it."

Daniel forced his pistol from his coat and cocked it back in the rain falling between them, aiming it directly at Jack's right eye.

"She will learn to love me."

Jack scoffed at this, while Eva sat trembling in the mud below for another moment.

"What good is her ease of love for you, or you for her? You cannot provide for her. You cannot give her children when you're hung at the noose."

Here Jack contemplated briefly, for a millisecond and no more, before he saw Eva stand up on shaky legs and protest clearly through the rain.

"Yes he can."

Both men's heads turned vividly upon her. Her clothes were sagging with the weight of the rain, her tiny form a shadow beneath the clinging white cotton and her eyes fierce.

Daniel shook his head with a sigh at her, "Stealing treasure does not constitute provision, Evangeline. He's a criminal."

"That's not what I meant," she argued back against the loud cry of lighting above them. Jack just stared at her with sad eyes and his sword pressing ever closer to Daniel's chest. "I see no noose here. And yet," she breathed in deep and stepped in toward their duel, softly whispering out, "I delight in the thought of having his children. _His_ child, above _yours_ any day, Daniel."

Daniel Bryant's eyes widened and faded to a deep, sinister black she'd never seen. This didn't matter half as much though, when she moved her gaze up to Jack's eyes and saw him shadow her in his confusion, his disbelief and an odd smirk of some kind.

She smiled nervously, not sure he was on the same page with her yet, not sure he was happy by the confession or the deliberate timing of it either. Jack stared at her longingly, trying to decipher her beaming face in all of the agony surrounding him, with the rain and the pistol pointed at him and the man trying to again, take her from him.

When he finally made the attempt to grin proudly, to say something to her, he felt the barrel of the gun reach his temple and slam into the bone under his skin roughly.

"Suppose I ought to finish you off quick then, before anyone else hears of her wish to harbor a _bastard_ child by the likes of you."

"Daniel, stop it."

He tried his best to ignore Eva, pressing the pistol only that much harder to Jack's head and grunting with his finger loose and wet on the trigger.

"I won't go with you either way. I don't love you and I refuse to _learn_ how."

"That's enough, Evangeline."

"No. It's not. Lower your gun."

"What for? So he can walk free again after having come into my home, left me for dead and stolen my wife?"

"Yes."

Jack stood there, listening to the debate of his own death for what seemed an eternity. And when no equal conclusion was made between the two of them, he took it upon himself to instead raise his sword higher and knock the pistol straight from Daniel's hand with a single swipe of the blade to his chest. The gun flew ten feet in Eva's direction as Bryant shouted with the pain of the instant, narrow wound from his neck to waist.

"Wot's next then, mate? A blow through th' 'eart?" Jack began to circle him dangerously with his sword, tapping certain limbs as Daniel struggled to stand straight with the rush of blood from his stomach. "Eva, love?"

Her ears perked with her eyes when Jack said her name and finally, beyond his earlier shock, she saw him smile at her. That twisted, morbid smile she'd only seen once before.

"Any requests?"

A timid shake of her head was response enough.

"She has remorse for you, Bryant."

"And yet she leaves my arms, my protection, for your _filthy_ bed."

Daniel had regained his strength and quickly tugged his own sword out, catching it in the windy rain with a wave in front of Jack's eyes as he spit bloodily onto his boots.

"I'm going to kill you, Sparrow. To prove to her once and for all, that you aren't invincible."

"Good luck," Jack teased, letting Daniel come at him with a lash of his blade, missing him completely with the slight weakness from his own wound.

The battle was long coming, after standing in the rain, fighting with words. But now, they began to turn about one another angrily, belting their swords and clanking them with wicked curses. Eva stood feet away, drenched and consistently changing her focus from the fight to the gun at the ground next to her boot. It was nearly drowned in a puddle from the rain by the time she knelt down and picked it up.

"She comes t' bed with me willingly ye know, Bryant! _Every_ night…"

Eva caught Daniel's angered face as he just missed Jack's inner leg with his blade.

"And she leaves rotted with disease no doubt!"

"So why ave' her back then?"

"Because," Daniel grunted with a nick at Jack's wrist, "She belongs to me. I own every bit of her from you."

Where they didn't know to pay attention to it, Eva was handling the pistol, now strung up in her hands, drenched with rain but willing to make proper aim whenever her eyes could see through the harsh wind. The weapon shook only slightly from her trembling, and she steadied it with her eyes on Daniel's moving form. She traced an imaginary outline of his battle footwork with the barrel end of the gun, cocking it back when she felt comfortable under it's understood power. She'd fired one plenty of times in practice with Teague, but never at someone else, especially someone she knew, someone she had once respected and been close to.

It wasn't until he lunged forward at Jack's tricking prance, falling to the wet ground thereafter, that Eva stepped in closer to the fight and held the pistol fully in tune and ready. Everything slowed then in time, from Daniel pushing himself from the puddles, to his half firm stance again on bent legs, to his turning in Jack's direction, to his snarl and the raising of his sword high in the air.

It was that moment, when he appeared to be in step with a possible blow to Jack, that Eva let her finger slide back and allowed the powder and fire to come at release from the pistol. The ring of the shot was loud, louder than most anything and the sound rattled through the street and buildings before the smoke cleared from her eyes enough to see the result.

Daniel was standing, but blood was running thick from his chest, his heart.

He wavered, ready to fall for the last time, and when her terrified gaze slid right only a foot, she saw Jack staring back at her for what began a half a second. When the moment passed, it was because Daniel had found the strength enough, upon his last breath, to force his blade deep within Jack as he stood oblivious, as he stood looking at the woman he thought he'd won.

"Jack!" Eva screamed wildly when she saw the blade pierce his shirt, then his entire gut, exiting through his back. "No!"

She dropped the pistol with what sounded like the beat of a drum. She watched as she ran, at how Daniel tumbled backwards to his own fate in the bloodied street, and then she tripped in behind Jack in time to catch him falling backwards the same, gasping for air he couldn't find and leaning against her until they both hit the ground together.

His hand was firm on the blade protruding from his lower stomach and with one quick tug he unsheathed it from his skin completely. And that's when the blood began to flow beyond Eva's attempt at controlling it.

"Jack," she begged, her eyes welled to the brim with tears over him. "Jack, look at me."

His head tilted back weakly until it rested down on what felt like a pillow, her heavenly chest. Eva stroked his cheeks as her hand was covered by his over the wound, both of their fingers stained and tangled with a bright red.

"Jack, I'm here. I'm right here with you, talk to me."

For a moment his eyes shifted closed, and then he opened them up to the pouring rain, fluttered them against the wetness and rolled them back up until he could see only her face peering down at him. That's when he gave her a crooked grin and squeezed her bloodied hand on his stomach.

"_Eva_…" he whispered, choking "…you shot im'."

She nodded ferociously, glancing over at Daniel's morbid form once, before letting her tears mix with the rain again.

"I did."

He tried to laugh, "That's good," and then his eyes started to close with the pain again.

"Jack, no. Jack, open your eyes!"

He did, barely.

"You're okay. You're going to be fine."

"Sure bout' that, gypsy?"

"Yes, stop that."

He laughed darkly and leaned down to examine the wound as she called out for help from the nearby tavern.

"Daniel Bryant…_a pirate murderer_. Who would 'ave thought it?"

"Stop that," she snapped at him, her lips pressed to his forehead, kissing him with tear-drenched lips. "You're alright."

He was quiet then, as she urged help when she saw a few scattered men walking nearby. They turned toward her shouting and ran to the situation, just in time for Eva to hear Jack softly mumble in a slur.

"Ye want—my _child_--"

And then, his eyes quivered shut with a smirk half fading on his mouth.


	29. Old Blue Chair

**

* * *

**

**Old Blue Chair**

* * *

_When I'm a ship tossed around on the waves  
Up on a high-wire that's ready to break  
When I've had just about all I can take_

_When I'm a bullet shot out of a gun  
When I'm a firecracker coming undone  
When I'm a fugitive ready to run, all wild-eyed and crazy  
No matter where my reckless soul takes me  
Baby you save me…_

-**You Save Me** by Kenny Chesney-

* * *

The rush to assist in the aftermath of Jack and Daniel's battle was greater than Eva could have ever imagined. The town was in havoc through the rest of the night and into the early morning light. Men from the tavern, from nearby inns and penny wench's rooms alike came into the street to do anything they could. Two strong men with thick Celtic accents and kind green eyes helped to carry Jack's semi-conscious form down to the docks where Gibbs had anchored the Pearl earlier in the day.

Once there, the crew was in an uproar, as well Eva thought they should be. Jack was a good Captain and friend to most every man who worked on his ship. She could see vengeance in all of their eyes, and although she assured them that Daniel had been taken care of, she was glad to see it all the same.

Gibbs showed the Irishmen to Jack's cabin, where he was laid down and bled terribly all over the sheets. Supplies were gathered quickly as Gibbs shouted each one out to Eva and she rushed back and forth through the room to find them. A water basin, thread and needle, fresh cloths, rum and the like were set up all around the bed on the table and floor, where he prepared to work on the wound. In all of this chaotic running around though, the tears never once stopped rolling down Eva's cheeks.

Finally, Gibbs grabbed her hand and brought her to a gentle pause in movement.

"Ye need t' work on keepin' 'im awake fer me, Eva."

His eyes were fatherly, calm, and a nice change of pace. She gave a shaky nod and walked around to the other side of the bed, carefully crawling in to where Jack laid with a lolling head.

"Jus' talk t' him, darlin'."

Eva took a deep breath, trying to ignore the amount of blood that had come off when Gibbs removed his shirt, or from the extra cloths, or the crimson water already in the basin. She focused on his face alone, where the color was faded from his usual russet cheeks to something closer to the shade of the stormy skies. She drew his face toward her, warm hands on his cool cheeks as she watched his eyes blinking open tiredly.

"Jack."

His nose wrinkled with the sound and his vision was fogged, but he could see two small blue orbs in the midst of grey and imaginary mist, and he smiled weakly.

"_Eva_."

"Yes," she sniffled with a tiny laugh, "It's me. I'm still here."

"Refusin' to let me go, eh?"

He choked on half his words, but she understood.

"You're not going anywhere. Mr. Gibbs is here, he's going to fix you."

This made him chuckle under his breath as Eva saw Gibbs lift the bottle of rum out to her. She knew what for, and taking the bottle, she brought it close to Jack's chin, tilting it on his lips as she lifted his head onto her knee.

"You need to drink some of this. Here…"

His parched lips barely touched the rim of the bottle before she was pouring it into his mouth. It soothed him after a few long sips and his head fell down to the pillows again hazily.

"Good rum, Joshamee."

The older man sighed with a laugh as he poured it over the front end of the wound, "Always th' best for ye, Jack."

Jack grinned and tilted his head back to see Eva curled close to him on the bed. He moved his arm with tingling fingers and wrapped it around her waist, pulling her that much nearer to him. He just had to feel all of her then.

She brushed his face and the wisps of hair around his ears as he looked up at her richly, bothered very little when the needle tore through his stomach a second later. This amazed Eva, seeing him that used to the pain of dressing a wound, and she absentmindedly began tracing the outline of the bullet holes over his heart.

"'Is he dead, Eva?"

"Yes," she replied quietly, "Daniel's dead."

"Did ye kill him?"

Eva nodded down at him before watching him smile and relax back with his eyes closed.

She held his face firmly, shaking him back awake, "Jack, talk to me. Don't close your eyes."

"Wot' ever shall we talk about, love?"

Gibbs kept laughing as he strung the thread through the gash time and again.

"I don't know; anything. Tell me a story."

"Wot' story?"

She thought about it for a moment, just long enough for his eyes to tilt shut again. Eva brought him back to waking a second time though, as she pressed her lips to his cheek and whispered, "Tell me about your mother."

"Me _mother_, now?"

"Yes," her command was soft, "Right now."

"Lord ave' pity, Gibbs, ye ear' this little thing orderin' me 'bout?"

His aged friend laughed agreeably with the teasing before smiling up at Eva with a nod. She relaxed into Jack's side and held his face to her to keep a steady watch on his eyes.

"I want to hear about her. You promised."

"Did I?"

"I know you remember quite well. Don't pretend otherwise."

He did, but the rum in his system and the loss of blood had turned him into nothing but an even worse tease.

"Why not remind me?"

She knew what he meant, the birthmark, the bite, and the night spent making reunion love only a day before.

Eva just giggled and stroked his cheeks, "I don't think Mr. Gibbs would be comfortable with that sort of reminder." The two men laughed then as well. "Just tell me, Jack. I want to know about her."

"Oh alright..."

And so, with their foreheads pressed closely together and with Eva's persistent kisses to keep him awake through the telling of the tale, she came to know every possible detail about Jack's mother. She learned she was a dark woman, with something of an Indian nature, and by his mocking surprise, something of a witch.

"She ad' her tricks just like ye."

"Your poor father," she giggled, thinking about Teague.

"Poor me…"

With a roll of her eyes, he went on. Only a half hour passed by in the story when Gibbs turned Jack over to dress the back end of his blade wound. Eva rested his face on her lap as he continued with the wistful tale of his mother. He told her about how she birthed him in the middle of a hurricane off the coast of South Africa, simply because she had refused to be away from his father another stint of six months. He told her about the way his mother would send him running about on adventures through Shipwreck and various islands Teague sailed to, gathering spices and plants to use in her recipes and charms. And he told Eva about the day that his mother had been taken ill with a fever that even her spells could not cure.

"How old were you when you lost her?"

He shrugged a little as Gibbs concluded with the stitching on his back.

"Young, ten years at most."

"You still miss her don't you?"

At the question, his eyes brightened a little more and Jack found hers were as curious as ever. There was a profound glow of interest in Eva on the topic, one he was sure he understood.

"Every day," he whispered peaceably.

She let the response sink in as the excess blood was wiped from Jack's body, as her and Gibbs worked to wrap the strips of cloths around his stomach to hold the stitches in place, and then settled him back onto the bed with a few more dousing sips of rum. The older was shown gratitude and a hug from Eva while he insisted she call for him on deck whenever need be, while he worked on giving orders for collecting and stocking the treasure. She agreed and went directly to Jack's bed when Gibb's had gone.

Eva took Jack's hand when he lifted it in the air for her, consciously aware of her even with closed eyes.

"You should sleep now."

He coughed on pain and a churning stomach, stroking the back of her hand in his.

"An' you're too good for sleep now are ye?"

His crooked grin calmed her all the more, "I can't sleep. I have to watch out for you same as you did for me. Remember?"

"I remember nearly losing me last wits waiting on ye t' heal."

"I'm prepared," she smiled and leaned down to kiss him softly. Jack of course, even through pain and tire, attempted to deepen the kiss and hold her there until he had tasted all of her. And Eva obliged for a long moment, before eventually pulling back and patting his cheek. "I'll be right here when you wake."

Then she tried to stand and head for her clothes trunk to change from her wet clothes, but Jack grasped her hand once more before she could and squeezed tightly with the agony of his returned pain.

"Wait. Talk t' me 'bout _babies_…"

Eva eyed him shortly; shocked he'd even remembered it.

"Rest first."

* * *

For the remainder of the day, Eva paced between the rooms of Jack's cabin and the outer deck of the ship, watching and assisting as best she could with the crew as they hauled trunks and barrels of jewels, pearls, gold and silver upward from the beaches of Clare Island. She would stay long enough to offer the tired, beaten men water or rum, and then hurry back inside of the cabin to Jack, who slept continually as she had hoped.

Gibbs showed her how best to check his bandages through the long hours and into the evening, making sure that infection didn't set in, and at least not before they had sailed for Shipwreck again. She did so a dozen or more times, with only good results from the older pirate's skill in handling a needle and thread. Now and then Eva would wet a warm cloth and brush it against his skin to soothe the pain she could see marked on his face even in unconsciousness.

He seemed to appreciate it, though she doubted he knew it was her.

Once in the late afternoon he mumbled, "Yer hands are so _warm_ t'night, Scarlett love."

Eva could only hold back from laughing at him.

It took another half a day the following one to complete the task of bringing aboard only _half_ of Grace's entire cache, as well as the definitive amount they'd promised to share with the locals of Galway. They would have to eventually sail back for the rest since it was all that they had space and haul weight for this trip. And that thought made Eva happy all the more, to know that possibly, by the next venture, Jack would be healed enough to take part in what he'd been so excited to have found. What they both had been excited to discover, _together_.

When the task was finished and when the first rains of the early Irish evening began to trickle down the panes of the bay window behind Jack's charting table, she heard the calls being made for making sail from the beach. She had wanted to go outside and work to help any way she could, but she knew in the rain, under Jack's condition, Gibbs' would most likely send her right back here with a smile. So she stayed, she paced about the wood floors, hunting around through things she had missed all those long months ago, when she was bound to this room for the very first time.

His book shelves were still intact, still flourishing, and she found herself immersed with pages of theory and possibility in the world for at least an hour out to sea. Eva tumbled in and out of the smaller back rooms of the cabin, digging through old trunks of things, saved heirlooms and stolen goods from far off places. And it was there, behind the thick velvet curtains of one niche that she saw blue in a way she hadn't before.

She pulled back on the hideaway drapes to reveal a chair, an old rocking chair, painted in frail and chipping blue paint.

"Where did that come from…" she whispered in question under her breath, tugging it from its confined corner and out further until she had brought it only feet from Jack's bedside.

It squeaked when she pushed it against the floor, tilting ever so gently, like the lulling rock of a mother and child. It made her smile giddily and she walked back to the shelf of books to grab one titled _Robinson Crusoe. _It looked promising, a good story to get lost in while Jack was lost in his dreams. And so she did. Cradled sideways with her bare feet dangling off the arm of the rocking old chair, a blanket half covering her and the pages of the book claiming every bit of her mind and spirit, she immersed herself in adventure.

In fact, it took her so far into the wily trials of a man trapped alone on a deserted island, like the deserted island of her mind; that she drifted into a soft sleep. The sleep she swore to him, she wouldn't take while he took his.

**

* * *

**

February 1769

**Shipwreck Island's Outer Banks**

* * *

It took them a fortnight to return. Two weeks of downpour from the Irish coast, through the Atlantic in a heavy swell that tossed them quickly about the curvature of the South African beach line, and then another week of churning aimlessly through the islands of Indonesia and the South China Sea. It was an impossible sort of journey, with heavy, beating rains on the windows and panels of the ship, deathly gusts through the topmast sails and a constant diving and rocking between waves that left everyone else tired from lack of sleep.

Everyone but Eva and Jack, that is.

Where he tossed and rolled about in the bed for those two weeks, letting more than one stint of infection pass through him at her continuous care, Eva found herself a contented bed nurse by the first week's end. She rarely moved from that old chair, the one that creaked and swayed with the ship's movements, unless it was to get a new book, or change Jack's bandages, or to stand idly at the windows staring at the storms. Other than that, she found comfort in the haggard wooden boards of the blue seat.

Something about it cured her of all worry. There was nothing to worry about. Jack would be fine once they made it to Shipwreck again. They had found Grace's treasure. And together, she imagined they would eventually be off to collect the rest of it, to sail the _Pearl_ into all sorts of adventures. But her imagination ran wild beside the hindrance of the confession she had stood by in order to manipulate Jack's battle with Daniel. She hadn't wanted to do it, but it came out, naturally so.

"_What good is her ease of love for you, or you for her? You cannot provide for her. You cannot give her children when you're hung at the noose." _

"_Yes he can."_

"_Stealing treasure does not constitute provision, Evangeline. He's a criminal."_

"_That's not what I meant. I see no noose here. And yet, I delight in the thought of having his children, his child, above yours any day, Daniel."_

Eva dreamt of that morning and that admission every moment she slept since then. She thought of how Jack had seemed to want to know about it so badly, not once or twice, but almost every time he woke with pain through the weeks. His eyes were lit up with curiosity, uncertainty, and hopefulness she couldn't understand. He wanted to know about her own desires for it, for a family, children, all of the things she'd felt sure she never wanted for herself.

She was sure she had declared it out of turn. Spoken out on something she only feared in life.

A simple touch on her bare foot, where it rested beside him on the mattress, where her legs were stretched up high from the chair that held her like a womb, was what made her eyes fall open to the light of early day.

"Eva," he spoke her name in a whisper, the cool silver of his rings playing on her toes. "Are ye awake?"

She rubbed her face and eyes with a yawn.

"Yes," her tired reply came when she looked at him. "Awake."

Jack smiled faintly, turned half on his side, staring at her position.

"Like me mother's chair, do ye?"

Her eyes widened, never realizing it could have belonged to such.

"It was hers?"

"Aye," he nodded, "She used to rock me t' sleep in that."

Eva felt she understood then, why she was so drawn to it, so sporadically, so unknowingly.

"It's nice. Comfortable."

"More comfortable than sharing this bed with me, ay?"

Eva saw the tease in his glowing eyes and she rose up and stood by his side, playing with his messy hair and bandana as he held her waist closer to him.

"Not more comfortable than that. But it cannot be helped in your condition."

"I'm quite well now, lass. Yer a good doctor."

She smiled and leaned down to where his lips sat so wanting and ready. Her mouth touched his softly, tasting like love all over. It hurt her to know it too, especially when she felt his hand move from her waist to rest just over her stomach. The kiss broke and she looked down at it.

"I want t' know about it now. Your wishes, tell me. Th' thoughts won't quit me in sleep."

His eyes were longing, desperate to know what he didn't and what he never could without her voice to tell it.

"Speak o' them, love."

She touched his cheek, ready to explain, "Jack--"

And then there were only screams from outside of the door, calls of the crew as they spotted land and hoarded through the ship, preparing it to weigh anchor at Shipwreck. Eva's eyes had temporarily turned from Jack to the door of the cabin, listening to the sounds of rope and sails and shifting stock barrels. But his warm hand rubbing her stomach through one of her hand stitched dresses, made all the difference as she glanced back at him.

"_Evangeline_, don' be scared o' me now."

"I'm not scared of you. It's just…"

"Wot'?"

"Jack, I--"

A forceful knock came on the door and then Gibbs' voice.

"Eva? We're sailin' in, lass."

Her face made an attempt to turn again but Jack reached up and stopped it, forcing her to look at him with gentility.

"Land can wait, we're still on th' sea. Now speak about this _motherly yearning_ o' yours, before I go mad."

More knocks came, his eyes burned brighter underneath of her, and all she could do was breathe out a small gasp and say, "I misled you, Jack. I can't determine if it's what I want at all. I spoke too soon, I fear."

She watched his curiosity fade to disappointment and it tore at her heart until she cried.

"You—don't…" back and forth his eyes shifted in her eyes, looking for something that wasn't there, "…why?"

"I don't know. I was trying to preserve your goodness against Daniel. I was trying to make him see you were a far more decent man than he could ever hope to be. I wanted him to know whose hands my heart rested in."

"So you lied t' me?"

"I never meant to make you think--"

"But ye did."

There was a hasty snap in his voice and a second later, the door to the cabin opened. Gibbs and a few other men entered to assist in readying Jack to be carried ashore and Eva only stood idly by the bed, holding Jack's solid black eyes until he turned his face from her angrily.

Gibbs tried to ask something of her, "Eva, darlin' can ye hand me that--"

But she spun around, ignoring all of them and stormed out of the cabin and off the docking ship in tears.


	30. On the Coast of Somewhere Beautiful

**

* * *

**

Chapter 30: On the Coast of Somewhere Beautiful

* * *

_Strong like a mother holds her child  
Free as horses running wild  
And real as a prayer on a lonely night  
And sure as the ocean tide_

_Oh love  
Oh the many colors that you're made of  
You heal  
You bleed  
You're the simple truth  
And you're the biggest mystery…_

_-_**Oh Love **by _Brad Paisley and Carrie Underwood-_

* * *

"Makin' me believe she wanted me child. Despicable race, th' lot of ye."

Jack mumbled darkly under his breath, sitting beside Elizabeth at the wooden table in the kitchen, watching as she cut the seams of his stitches. She just rolled her eyes and went on snipping at the perfectly healed wound from front to back.

He played with small bits of excess cooking flour under his fingers and kept on demeaning everything he still knew Eva was to him. Whether he really wanted to or not.

"Wot' did she think? That lyin' to a pirate was a smart way t' hold his trust?"

"Jack. I don't know."

Elizabeth was frustrated with his moving around and the way he snapped about her friend, her little sister in many ways. She knew better than him, that Eva must have had a good reason for what she did, all women in her position do.

"I'm certain she didn't mean to hurt you, though."

"A good job she did o' it then."

"What are you saying?" She stopped when all of the thread stitches were pulled free of his skin and looked him directly in the eye, "Are you truly hurt by her lie? Or is that only what you'd _like_ her to think?"

He said nothing.

"She's just a girl, Jack. She was scared for your life. She said something that wasn't entirely true to defend your honor, never realizing the power it could have against her own mind, a still mind in comparison to yours." Lizzie wrung out a bloodied rag in a bowl and stood up, glaring down at him an added moment, "Is that so wrong of _us women,_ then? To want to protect what we love against all odds?"

He could see the nerve he'd unknowingly struck in his dear friend; the one that he often times did under looming circumstances, upon topics that triggered memories of William Turner. Elizabeth was set to defend Eva because of it, much the same way Eva had defended him with the faux claim of pregnancy. He was going to lose this battle. He knew it. So he just shook his head in response and rose to leave the room.

He was stopped only once more, "Jack?"

"Wot'?" He asked turning back to Elizabeth's brightened auburn eyes under him.

"You can't hold this against her at any means and you know it. She sat by your side for two weeks as Gibbs tells it. And who's to say," she paused and handed him his shirt again, "that she doesn't want to carry your child, to make a family with you, someday at best?"

Jack shrugged and threw his shirt on, his mind a wild fever of everything being said.

"Eva's sacrificed a lot for you. Maybe you should sacrifice your _damn_ pride for her this once."

He wasn't sure he liked that. Jack's pride was his barrier of defense in the drama of real life, with women. But, with that and a kiss on Lizzie's head in gratitude for her medicinal help, he left the kitchen and house to take a walk around the island. There were a million and one things to think about, most of them concerning what he was at risk of losing, all because he was too stubborn to let the obvious cover a mistake.

* * *

It was not much longer into the hour, as Elizabeth carried a freshly folded pile of linens toward Eva's room, that she heard shouting, stomping and incessant movement. With her ear pressed to the door curiously, she could then half understand a blend of words coming from both Little Jack and Eva alike, as they rushed from one end of the room to the next.

"You'll never catch me, giant!"

There was a forced, humoring roar from Eva as Elizabeth heard her son screech and turned the knob to see him scooting across the room for the bed. He barely hopped up on his small legs as Eva lunged for him, her teeth bared and her arms raised like a monster.

"I'm going to eat you, my little _pirate_…"

Jack held his sword out at her and thrust it about, "Never, never!"

"You look so tasty."

Her teasing continued even after she had seen Elizabeth watching with an idle smile in the doorway. She chased Little Jack down off of the bed, crawling after him to the floor, until she picked up a fierce pace on foot again. They ran in circles for a steady amount of time before Eva suddenly felt her bare feet shifting underneath of her, wobbling almost. Dizziness preceded her as she slowed and tried to catch her breath.

Little Jack came to her side, worried, and began tugging on her to continue chasing him, "Eva! Eva! Be the giant!"

She patted his head and worked to get her balance back, but instead, the moment she let her foot slide out in front of her to run again, she felt herself falling down to the floor. Eva fainted in a heap at Little Jack's feet as Elizabeth rushed to her aide anxiously.

"Oh my word…! Eva?"

She turned her over to rest her head on her lap as she urged her son to run and get Teague in his study. Jack darted away down the hall and Elizabeth sat with a pale and semi-conscious Eva in the middle of the room's floor.

"Evangeline," she patted a cloth from her dress pocket over her clammy skin, "Open your eyes, dear. It's Elizabeth, I'm right here."

"_Lizzie_…" she finally sighed, fluttering her eyes up at her friend, her sister. "I didn't mean to lie to him."

It was an unexpected statement, one that was unnecessary for the condition she was in, but still, Elizabeth couldn't help thinking it meant something truer, something Eva obviously regretted more than anything. Teague arrived only a minute later in a flurry of nervous words and assistance as he helped Liz pull Eva to her feet, and then toward a close chair. Little Jack was sent to fetch a cup of water from the pitcher in the kitchen, while Elizabeth wet a cooler rag and laid it to rest on her forehead.

Teague finally asked in a whisper, "Wot' happened t' er'?"

"She was running around with Jack, sword fighting, just playing. And then she fainted."

"Th' color is all but gone from 'er cheeks." Softly, Teague held Eva's face and knelt before her. "Eva, dear, ye look terribly ill. How do ye feel?"

Her head lolled for a moment as she widened her eyes and breathed heavily.

"Very hot, it's too warm in here."

Teague and Elizabeth both felt comfortable, especially with the February wind howling in from the open windows.

"On the contrary, it's rather cold in here. Perhaps you're falling ill as Teague says."

"No," Teague interrupted as he looked deep into Eva's eyes, "No, sickness isn't th' matter, Liz."

"What then?"

He smiled at the way Eva's brow turned up confusingly, for he saw something in her eyes alone that told him this was all beyond a flu, "I do believe our little Eva has other reasons for 'er spell."

Little Jack returned with a spilling cup of water and gently handed it up to Eva, as she smiled down at him and ruffled his hair. She sipped as Lizzie spoke finally.

"Which are, _what_ Teague?"

"Oh don' tell me ye can't see it, an' compare it t' your own time spent fainting all o' five years gone now."

Elizabeth's eyes lit up then as she knelt by Teague's side, touching Eva's shaking leg and seeing just what he saw, the magnetism of truth hidden away, the truth that had so fleetingly been a destructive fib.

"What are you talking about?" She asked them both nervously, feeling as though she were about to vomit. "Why are you looking at me like that, Teague? Lizzie?"

Together they laughed lightly at her, nodding in agreement, as Teague wiped away the falling drops of water on her forehead from the wet cloth.

With a sigh, Elizabeth stroked her hair with a smile and whispered, "It appears you haven't lied to Jack after all, Eva."

And with that being said and understanding met, she nearly fainted in their hands a second time.

* * *

Jack felt sure he'd walked clear across the island, maybe twice even. He'd made it as far as loneliness would let him, as far as he could get from the noises and the life of the barricaded town of ships laid to rest. He had made it to the low hills that cascaded down the south walls to the fortress. They led to only a beach, one he'd sat on alone too many times in his life, a place where he'd contemplated the truth of living and being and going on.

And somehow, he always managed to.

He forgave Eva miles and miles back on his walk, and probably miles and miles of thinking and hours before that. There was little reason for him to be mad, other than his own foolish will to let the anger boil up in the first place. Elizabeth was right; she must have had a good enough to reason, one that had no doubt proven him a good man, a strong one, a protector and a provider against Daniel Bryant's seemingly harsh words.

In every crevice of his mind, he could hear her. And in every corner of his heart, there she sat.

"_Ere', let me help you, quickly."_

He saw blue eyes, a stolen satchel and a dirtied bunch of skirts in the road beneath him. And then he saw her disappear, gone for bigger adventures. Ones that led her right back beneath his feet again, somehow.

"_Need t' find those sea legs o' yours boy…" _

Nets and tiny hands; he saw chopped black hair and a gash in her pretty, sun kissed arm.

"_I acknowledge that you're tending to my wound, but I won't show gratitude for your own mistake."_

"_I wouldn't ave' forgotten th' damned lock, if ye hadn't set 'bout me room like a siren this morning." _

"_Your weaknesses are your own. You needn't take them out on my arm!"_

That was the first time he had witnessed the fight in her, the strength and will. Jack knew he was never the same again after that day. From there it was a straight shot of deliverance to Shipwreck as promised, where he'd left her to serve an unnecessary sentence of apprenticeship under Teague. If only he'd known what he would have to come back to, what she'd be, and how unpredictable a thing learning could be for a young girl with ambitions, he might have held onto her a little longer out of fear for his livelihood alone.

If only he hadn't given her up after that very first taste.

"_I am nothing more than a girl on the run, Jack. What could ever interest you so about that?"_

"_I've been a man on th' run me whole life, Eva. Figure it out…"_

"_I could leave ye at th' Cove with naught more than a handshake an' tip of me hat..." _

"…_which would be wise."_

"_But m' not after wisdom ere', lass."_

"_Then what are you after?"_

There was that first kiss, the first claim of sweetness and bitterness and rebellion in her. She was right there beneath him, giving herself to him, letting him come in finally. And he instead gave into the calls from an anchoring deck.

_Stupid, bloody stupid, _he thought to himself now, as his boots struck the soft grasses of a lower hill spanned out a good twenty feet from the shore below. He heard the bark of a familiar little dog and followed it.

"_I'm glad you consider me a fair equal."_

"_After that spectacle t'night, if I don't…I'll most likely 'ave me prick torn an' fed to the dogs."_

"_I wouldn't dream of sharing any single part of you with the dogs. Especially THIS part…"_

Katang Port and a fresh tattoo; a bar fight and another night spent reminding himself why he came back for her at the Cove in the first place. Jack's loins burned with an ancient fire that only Eva and the thought of her had ever sparked with such immediacy before. He stumbled across the flat grasses until he ran into Dill, barking his head off in the middle of the sloping hill.

"Wot'?" He asked as he came near and reached down to scratch behind his ears. "Wot' are ye barking all th' way out 'ere for?"

Dill continued to howl as he ran about in circles near Jack, jumping through the grass. Jack's eyes followed him a short distance father until they ran across something settled on the ground a yard ahead. He walked to the brown looking object, only to realize it was a boot, a small boot at that. He knew the second he lifted it from the ground, that it was hers.

"Where is she, mutt?" Jack shoved the boot angrily down to Dill's nose as his head turned, "Show me where yer mum's at."

The dog skipped around in the direction the waves were crashing and echoing with the wind. Jack followed near enough, his eyes falling upon her second boot only another yard or so further, but closer to the beach. He picked it up as well and ran the rest of the way down the rocky path, his mind a sudden rush, an instant battle of all things evil in the world for some reason.

His own boots hit the beach minutes later, and he pulled them off to gain a better balance on his toes. Jack kicked up sand, running, hurrying to where Dill had disappeared down the curve of the small shore to the more secluded bay. Distorted, twisted things floated around in his head, preparing him for what he might find, what he couldn't bear to find. He thought of calling out her name, and would have, if he hadn't so easily and so quickly staggered upon the only scene he hadn't expected.

There, a short walk further down the private shore, Eva was crumbled at the water's edge, her head hanging in her hands as the waves crashed over her folded, haphazard legs. Her long black tresses blew with the easterly wind, tangling in the beaded necklaces and gems he could just see dangling off her neck. Her dress, another tattered and self-fashioned one from the Indian silks he'd purchased especially for her, drifted with the incoming waves and then clung to her bare legs as the water tumbled back to sea, each time.

She was mesmerizing to him, even washed in the pain that radiated from every bit of her. The pain he'd caused no doubt. The pain that drew him to her, like a fly to a flame, his eyes stuck on every tiny detail, from the way her hands trembled against her hidden face, to the way her legs made a personal intent in the wet sand, a mold that fit her like he was sure his body could even better.

The water rushed over his feet as he walked towards her, inching ever closer, until finally, he was within arm's reach and not stopping. He kept going, kept stepping behind her, his feet sinking in the sand her body was, his legs bending to kneel just against her, his hands moving out to hold her shaking, freezing shoulders.

Eva gasped with a choke of tears in her hands and looked up to see the distant, grey horizon. The touch she felt didn't have to be determined with a view, she knew it. She just, hadn't ever _expected_ it.

"Vang'line. Yer shivering, darlin'."

No words were returned, even as he lowered himself to the sand and crashing waves. Not when he wrapped his legs around hers at either side, nor when he did the same with his arms, sliding them down each of hers, feeling every goose bump and raised hair.

"Wot' are ye doing all th' way out 'ere alone?"

Eva felt his breath, hot, sentimental on her neck, her ear, but she couldn't bring herself to look at him or talk.

So he begged then, "_Please_," whispering, stroking through her hair the way he loved doing, "Talk t' me."

His arm around her was strong, as though he were keeping her from what he somehow knew she was thinking of, what she had been contemplating silently. He was that arm, the one she'd felt such a long time ago, the first night they slept by each other's side. Jack was that string, the one that refused to let her sail away or fly away or sink any further than her knees would allow in the sand.

Finally, against the wind she said with a teary gulp, "I let you down. I hurt you, Jack."

"No." His answer was fast, reassuring. "No, you've ne'er let me down. And m' not hurt. Jus' concerned."

"Because I lied to you…"

He shook his head where she couldn't see and rested it to the back of hers, breathing in the scent of her wild jasmine soap, like always.

"No. Concerned because I didn't know it could affect me like that."

Eva wiped a tear from each of her eyes and hugged his arm around her waist tight.

"Affect you how?"

"All kinds o' ways," he sighed and pulled her deeper into him, eyes closed and counting her breaths. "I've come t' realize I do want that, Eva, little ones, a family. Ne'er thought I did or _could_."

"With whom, _preferably_? A woman who won't lie to you, I'm sure."

At this, she felt him suddenly shift their position, gently spinning her around in his arms until she was cradled and facing him, their legs tangled and bodies falling back and forth with the incoming waves on the wet shore. Jack looked directly into her eyes, catching the flicker of green amidst all the blue, and brought his forehead down to hers, entrancing every bit of her then.

"You had e'ery good intention in mind when ye made that claim t' Daniel, t' _me_. I know that."

"I did."

"An' that's enough."

"How can that be enough? Is forgiveness such a difficult thing for you to let me win back?"

"Wot's t' be forgiven? Wot's t' win back? You 'ave me; I'm right 'ere."

Eva sighed almost in annoyance, but more so confusion with him.

"You were so angry that day, when we arrived back here. You've ignored me every moment since then. And now you come down here, readily willing to _charm_ me into thinking it's all well and good again."

"It is though, Eva."

Silence fell but he continued.

"I'm a proud sort o' bastard, you already know as much. Can't very well ward off fear with utter humbleness, now can I?" Eva's tears spilled slowly while he talked, but she acknowledged every little word that was spun and shook her head at the question. "Liz'beth put me in my place this morning."

"She's good at that," Eva teased, knowingly.

Jack chuckled briefly and caressed her cold cheeks, "She is. Good nough' in fact, to bring me 'ere, back t' you to apologize."

"You don't have to--"

His hand over her mouth stopped the words as his deep glare sunk her into listening again.

"Eva, I saw yer boots tossed aside on th' trail down 'ere. Ye ran here, didn't you?"

She nodded against his palm with a tightened, confused brow.

"Thought so, running from wot', now that I don't know. Maybe I don' need t' know." He breathed deep, focusing on the way her eyes shifted back and forth between his solemn, grotesque ones. "All I know is I saw those boots, I heard th' dog barking his bloody head off, I came t' the beach and saw you 'ere and only one thing came t' me mind. An' believe me darling, I don't _ever_ want t' have to think that thought again. Ye understand?"

Again, a swift nod as he lowered his hand.

"Good. Because I can't bear th' thought o' losing ye. Not now. Not when I finally 'ave ye safe again."

"A well and safe _hypocrite_."

He rolled his eyes with a tired laugh, "Now don't worry 'bout that, I'll make an _honest_ liar out o' you yet, love."

Eva faintly smiled as Jack wiped the tears from her eyes.

"I'm sorry otherwise, for delivering false hope." She stopped a short time and lifted one of his hands from her leg to settle it upon her stomach as Jack watched on oddly. Eva pressed his palm hard against her wet silk dress, her watery eyes rising a moment later to hold onto the weary gaze in his. "If only I'd chosen a fortnight later to lie to you. I might have succeeded in the task."

His brow creased down, lost, unsure of her point, but patient in waiting.

"Grace brought us quite a bit _more_ than rubies in Ireland, Jack."

"Wot' are ye--"

She cut him short with her trembling lips dancing on his. "I _am_ carrying your child. I only just discovered it before you did me here today."

"_You_…" he sighed in wonderment, eyes wide, bringing his second hand to also rub and press to her flat stomach, "You can't be--"

"I am." More tears flourished in a flash. "And in all the running around I've done with you, all the risks I've come to see," Eva breathed deeply but the wetness still soaked her cheeks as her lips trembled, "I've never been so afraid in all my life, as I am now."

Jack couldn't help but to hold her shaking form, watch her, learn to understand Eva's only fear.

"What can I possibly know about having a child? About being a mother?"

Her jaw chattered as he held her face, bringing it close to his.

"I'm not Elizabeth. I'm can't possibly be your mother, I don't know what I'm doing."

Jack's forehead met hers, his fingers and rings twisted up in her misty curls, just breathing her worry in.

"She defeats the Royal Navy an' the Company's finest, and still, it's bats an' babies she's afraid of," his teasing whisper made Eva shrug even past her own nervousness as she clung to him. "What am I going t' do with ye, lass?"

"Probably lose your mind."

"Too late, love."

That's when he finally smiled sideways down at her, his dark eyes glowing in the late light of day from under his red sash. The twitch of his nose, the wiggle of his mustache against her upper lip, all of it convincing her of the childish joy her words had brought back to him, for_ real_ this time.

"My baby, _our_ baby; it has a nice ring to it, ay?"

"Yes," she was cut by a simply delivered kiss and then a dreamy sigh, "It does. The best."

A fit of shocked laughter broke between them, eyes sparkling from one to the other as he claimed heartily, again and again, "I've loved ye so long, Eva Marley. My little Irish gem. An' now yer me whole life, me whole world."

Her face cupped in his hands drew a wide, teary-eyed smile as she replied, "And I love you all the more, Jack."

"All th' more than wot'?" He teased with kisses all about her face.

"All the more than the day _before_ and the day before that; I love you all the more with each passing second, every crash of every single wave on this earth. That's the way I love you."

And then the advantage of another _passing second_ was stolen by Jack. With one hand cradling her body against his and the bubbling rush water, his other held the nape of her neck, fingers twisting about on her coal spindles as his lips and tongue did the same to her mouth. It was the taste he was understandably greedy of, the one that he would let kill him, bring him back to life and kill him all over again just for the fun of it. Her tongue did _not_ fight for control this time, like so many other moments before. Eva let him have complete freedom over her and allowed Jack to simply feel the contentment welling inside of her.

The rebel was still there though. He knew it too well for it not to be. She showed herself when they fell down to the sandy water together, covered in nothing but each other's love and skin and the sea and forgiveness. Kisses were like rain in a storm, matching the curvature of her neck, shoulders, her breasts over her dress and her thighs through silk and lace. Jack lifted her long, olive legs one by one, kissing from toes to the arc of her ankles, up the back of her calves and to the crook of her knee, remembering all the little bits of her that he never _truly_ needed to be reminded of to feel throughout the long days anyway.

She was his. Not Daniel Bryant's. Not London's. Not Shipwreck's. Not St. Pierre's, just _his_.

In the end, he came to realize that the good message, the one she was meant to deliver to him, had been coming in pieces all along, ones he'd undoubtedly collected forever. Eva was his match. She was the pirate that few women dared to be and even fewer men believed could exist. She was the thief who stole the most impossibly, black soul in the ocean and reminded it how to shine loyally in love. She had conquered an adventure of historic proportions, a feat of hidden infamy her first round in the field, and taught him, the expert, a thing or two in the process.

Evangeline Marley was everything that Jack Sparrow was said to be to the world, and more than that, she was his rebel heart, the one that no one had ever seen or known before her. Better yet still, she was the compass to his ever wavering pace of confusion on this earth.

And unlike all the other pretty compasses, she was always able to lead him back North, and back _home_.


	31. Epilogue

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**Epilogue**

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In recounting the story of Jack Sparrow and Evangeline Marley, it is important to remember that much of what occurred, for the sake of a great tale, can be easily challenged. To know Jack and Eva, the reader will also know that big things happen to those with even larger spirits, and that two fish grown too large for their own ponds, somewhere came together in the middle of a vast ocean on purpose, not by mistake.

Grace O' Malley's treasure was as true as a legend can come among the trade of pirates, and the adventure that Jack took Eva on was far grander a thing, far more triumphant a motion for love, than even the Pirate Queen's lost intention for hiding the jewels away. Many events occurred in the months and years that followed after their discovery on Clare Island, most of which was learned by me through childhood bedtime stories.

The storyteller on stormy nights was my mother. And on those nights where the seas were calm and the hull of the ship we called home was sturdy, it was my father who delighted my mind into the best dreams.

He told me stories about a man named Jack who had battled sea monsters and ghosts. He was a wily pirate who had taken on thousands of hurricanes, lighting storms, and even a maelstrom. He told me about the mermaids this man Jack had charmed and the sirens on the Grecian coast that had done the same to him in return. But my father always ended his stories by reminding me how much of a fool Jack was, while my mother ended them by usually commanding his foolishness as unusual bravery.

It was years later before I discovered who Jack really was, because all my life he'd merely been _Papa_.

My parents' were lovers before they loved each other and heroes long before their time. My father will tell you to this day, that he knew he couldn't live without my mother the exact moment he nearly lost her. My mother on the other hand, will say it was the day he finally returned to her. Together they sailed and fought for the treasure of Grace O'Malley, never wavering nor stepping down from one another's side.

And for this, they achieved the grand success.

It took two trips from the shores of Clare Island to the banks of Shipwreck Cove to deliver all of the treasure they'd scoured. Gems the size of fists and gold that shone brighter than even the sun itself were carried back and shared among anyone claiming to be a believer of their tale. Because of it, Shipwreck still flourishes to this day, even without the great cotton of the infamous Mr. Bryant.

In fact it was on their first return journey to Ireland, after the rescue of my mother from London, as the bow of the Pearl took on the raging waves of a snow storm off the coast of Greenland, that my parents' _unknowingly_ conceived their first child. From what I've been told, the _not knowing_ of this, and the lie my mother spilled to salvage the honor of my father before Daniel Bryant's spat of falsity, nearly led to their separation.

Nearly.

At the request of my grandfather Teague and the groveling and making up of Jack to Eva for the whole of three months, they eventually married in a small, coastal ceremony upon their re-arrival in Shipwreck. To which my mother and father both learned to deal with and finally respect the institution of marriage.

My brother, _Elijah_, was born at Teague's house a mere four months later, on January 25th, 1770. In my mother's account of this eventful night, she always mentions that my father had barely escaped the noose of the British fleet on the banks of Singapore to make it to the Cove in time to see his son born. Here, my father will always add that his jaw, a constant victim to my mother's temper, has never quite healed properly since.

Two years passed by in which Jack and Eva sailed with baby Elijah across free and open waters, taking down merchant ships casually, and rescuing slaves by the thousands to sneak them home on trips all along the African coast. It was on the beach in Mali though, that my mother was taken ill by a mysterious water fever, from which she very nearly died. But in perfect account on both sides, it was my father's tales, the ones she'd heard a million times before, as well as his diligence in remaining by her sick bed for an entire month that healed Evangeline Sparrow. And it was on the night in which her fever finally broke, that a second child was conceived.

I, Zoe Sparrow, was born nine months later in the middle of a Jamaican hurricane. And because Mr. Gibbs had trouble reading his pocket watch with salt-water blurred vision, it still remains a mystery to this day of whether I was born at 11:59 pm on September 15th, or at 12:00 am on September 16th, in the year 1772.

Perhaps though this is a clue to the person I am today, my mother's daughter in so many ways and my father's little girl in so many others. I have difficulty with patience, I jump from one situation to the next without worrying about tying up loose ends, and I constantly challenge anyone worthy of me.

At twenty years old, the same age at which Eva met Jack, I am a fortnight away from my own marriage. With the approval of my father and the insistence of both my mother and Elizabeth Turner, I am going to marry my best friend, the person who has saved my life countless times and shown me what true love was when I hardly believed in it at all. Jack Turner, so named for my father a great many years and adventures ago, has asked me to be his, forever.

Using the knowledge I have gained from both the adventures and misadventures, the beautiful and unfortunate events, as well as the sorrow and passion of every finite detail of my parents love for one another, I know I can fill my heart the same and trace my own path where their ship's hull pauses in the ocean and their footprints end in the sands of this wide world.

We Sparrows have one thing going for us above will power and curiosity. And that's _undeniably_, love.

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End file.
